


Dragonwilde

by Fledhyris



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Dean Winchester is a dragon, Dragons, Fanart, M/M, SPN Reverse Bang 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:14:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 34,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21685843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fledhyris/pseuds/Fledhyris
Summary: Samael (Sam Winchester) is a young hunter-warrior in a pre-medieval, tribal society. One night he dreams of the time his mother vanished, when he was a baby. He is sent on a vision quest through a magical portal to a world of dragons, unicorns and nightmare beings of evil known as the Shade. On his journey, Sam finds love and danger among the answers he seeks; but can his unique bond withstand the revelation of what it means to be Dragonwilde?
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Comments: 60
Kudos: 81
Collections: 2019 Supernatural Reversebang Challenge





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first ever community writing challenge and I was immediately inspired by [the gorgeous artwork of Phoenix1966.](https://phoenix1966.livejournal.com/36755.html) Dragons are my first-and-always love, so when I saw the stunning depiction of Dean as a dragon, as shown in the title banner, I had to have him! Of course I then managed to turn my ideas into an epic tale ten times the stipulated length, because my brain secretly hates me; but I hope the story is worth the struggle and that you will love Dragon!Dean as much as Sam and I do.
> 
> Please note: this is a Sam/Dean story, but there is only one, not terribly explicit sex scene (NOT as a dragon!) which you can skip if you aren't keen on that sort of thing, but would still like to enjoy the story. I'll remind you in the notes for that chapter. The rest of the story is suitable for a general audience. Names are slightly altered to reflect the historic/fantasy setting, but it should be obvious who everyone is.
> 
> A huge thank you to my beta, moth2fic, who took on an unexpectedly mammoth task without complaint; and to my friends Sintari(OriginalSintari), thanks_tacos and Alltheshrinks for their unstinting support, encouragement and belief that I could do this. (I actually did!)

**Stormclouds lowered,** grumbling in a bruise dark sky as lightning speared downwards in multiple branches, its violent tracery throwing the scene before him into stuttering relief. A wide circle of stones towered up from the wind-lashed plain, standing against the storm like a shaman’s raised fist; fingers stiff and slightly curled, cupping energy ready to hurl it back to the sky, either in answer to its challenge or for the sheer exuberant exchange of power.

Another flash - they called it Dragons’ Tongues - seared the looming columns into Sam’s eyeballs, but not before he spotted the movement at the base of the henge. Something was happening down there, between the rough hewn bastions of granite. He peered through the night and his wind-whipped hair, forced himself not to blink when the Dragon spat, the storm both assisting and assaulting his vision.

A figure, slight between the stones, was struggling in the grip of something… too dark and nebulous to make out against the shadows of their surroundings. Nevertheless, a spear of dread pierced him through like ice, as though one of the bolts of lightning had struck him to the core. Whatever it was, was evil, wrong; he knew it as instinctively as the rabbit fears the striking snake; it did not belong here, and its presence was what brought the storm, as the world howled its affront. And whoever it grappled was human, and clearly in need of help. Sam wasted no more time on thought; he ran towards the circle, his bare feet thudding into the wet earth with each powerful stride. His lungs sucked in air sharp with the storm’s ozone and the cleansing melancholy of rain, and the Dragons’ Tears lashed his bare skin like a whip of icy needles, goading him on.

Closer now, he could make out the human figure between the stones, though not as yet its shadowy assailant. It was a woman, her blonde hair loose and whirling wild about her head in the stormwind, her soaked skirts clinging to her legs. She was screaming, he could hear her now, not in terror but in fury. Her thin cries pierced the darkness as bright in sound as the lightning’s flare, as she railed helpless curses against her captors. For there were two of them, he could make it out now; they ebbed and flowed around her, curiously unformed and almost merging into one menacing figure. They had her by the wrists, her arms stretched out to the sides, and she twisted back and forth but could not break free.

Sam felt the berserker rage descend, the Dragons’ Wrath that tinged his vision with blood and pounded in his ears louder than the snarl of thunder overhead. He leapt forward, putting forth a renewed spurt of energy to reach the shadow-creatures, and let loose a bloodcurdling war cry as he pulled his knife from its leather sheath about his thigh. The woman looked up sharply and her own cries silenced for a moment as she stared at him through the pelting rain and the flickering stormlight. Then,

“Sam!” she called out to him, the love and longing in her voice clear even through the blood mist of his rage, the howling of the storm, and suddenly he knew her, even though she had been gone for as long as his living memory. 

It was his mother. He didn’t know how he knew, but he was utterly certain, and the shock pierced the battle fury and drew him up short, only a few strides from the edge of the circle. He stood there, staring in wide eyed incomprehension and mounting fear, not for himself but for her. He had the strongest sense of déjà vu, though he could not possibly have witnessed this scene, he had been but a babe in arms when Maire was lost to them; and besides, nobody in the tribe knew what had befallen her, only that one day she was gone, vanished without a trace. 

She left behind a grieving, newly-wedded husband and a son too young to have formed any lasting memories; and yet, here she was, standing before him in peril, and he knew her as surely as he knew the face of his own father. Could she be trying to come back to them somehow...? But no, she looked too young, Sam had passed his first-score count of years several seasons ago; but the woman before him looked little older than himself, just as he imagined she must have looked when they lost her, long ago. He couldn’t grasp it, the incongruity slid over his brain like an evading eel. All he knew was that his mother was here somehow, in the grip of some powerful force for evil, and he was here too, and old and strong enough to save her. The Dragons’ Wrath boiled up within him once more and he threw himself toward the stone circle and the dark beings pinioning his flesh and blood.

It all happened so quickly, between one flash of lightning and the next, so that he seemed to be caught in time, frozen mid-stride even though he never stopped moving. The shadow creatures surged upwards at his renewed approach and pressed close about his mother. Their touch seemed to hurt or alarm her, as she cried out again, this time in pain. Still, she did not take her eyes off him; eyes as green as the new grass of the plains in spring, he noted abstractedly; and she smiled tremulously, mouth set bravely against the pain.

“Sam, my little Sammy!” she said then, and her voice flowed with love like a well of sunlight. “Remember me, my love! All will be well.” 

The shadows were wrestling her forwards, trying to force her out from between the stones but she resisted, pulling back into the heart of the circle. Sam was running, he was nearly upon them, but still not quite close enough to reach out…

His mother’s foot came down on the grass on the inner side of the stones and she erupted into flames, as though she had been doused with a bucket of oil and set alight. His first stunned thought was that she must have been hit by lightning, but when the skies next flashed, he knew that there had been no lightning in that moment.

“NOOOOOO!” he howled, and hurled himself towards the stones, though the heat of the flames beat in his face and scorched his skin. He came up against an invisible barrier as though hitting a wall, squashing his nose painfully against thin air. Frustrated, he could only stand before the framing pillars of the ancient dolmen, watching in horror as his mother burned up before his eyes, a flaming pillar that lit up the night around him in crimson and orange, blotting out the stabbing spears of lightning all around.

And yet… she did not burn, the flames only rose around her, engulfing her but not consuming, as she continued to smile at him through the veil of fire. The shadows at her side melted away at the flames’ touch, crisping black like charred wood and scattering on the wind like so much ash. Still she burned on, brighter than any fire he had known, and still she smiled, her face tranquil and unhurt. She raised an arm, now freed, towards him; beckoning, pleading, or bidding him farewell, he could not be sure. Then suddenly, she was gone; the flames winked out and the night pressed against his eyes like a blanket until one last stab of lightning revealed the empty circle of stones and the charred ring of grass just beyond them. The barrier holding Sam back dissolved and he pitched forward, falling to his knees inside the circle. He remained there, shocked and silent, staring into the space where his mother had been while tears coursed down his cheeks, mingling unnoticeably with the rain, and the storm died down overhead, the thunder retreating with a last few growls to which he paid no heed.

As dawn crept imperceptibly through the henge, its light seemed unusually great; it pulsed through the air as though the whole world was shining, sparkling unbearably in each crystal droplet that hung from the grass blades, until he had to throw his arm up over his eyes to shield them. Brighter than the lightning, brighter than his mother’s flames, brighter than the sun, it enveloped him in a blinding whiteness that yet shone with every colour of the rainbow. When at last it ebbed and he cautiously lowered his arm, he was no longer kneeling within the circle of stones, out on the storm-drenched plain; he was lying in bed, at home in his yurt of stretched hides and woven blankets, and the morning sun was fingering the open flaps of the doorway.

He knew, then, that it had been a dream; but more than any simple dream of night’s passage. It was a vision dream, a true seeing, what his people called the Wisdom of the Dragon; and he jumped out of bed and ran from the yurt without stopping for breakfast, pausing only to grasp up his knife and fasten the sheath about his leg (the same knife he had wielded in his dream, now lying ready to hand by his pallet of furs where he had placed it last night before sleeping). He ran through the camp, clad only in a loincloth, his unbound hair streaming behind him like the mane of a wild horse, and his father’s startled call fell on deaf ears. 

Sam had only one thing on his mind and that was to seek guidance for his vision. He was going to see Misoori, the shaman of the tribe, and ask her counsel.


	2. Chapter 2

In many ways, the shamans were the _de facto_ leaders of the tribes who called themselves the People of the Dragon. There were leaders in name; usually the strongest warriors, like Sam’s father, who could be counted on to rally their people and protect the tribe. The tribes themselves were largely friendly toward one another, given all they had in common. But there was always the threat of the city folk, the so-called ‘civilised’ nations to the south who abhorred the tribes for their use of what they ignorantly termed magic, and occasionally mustered up a half-hearted religious crusade against them. Border skirmishes and raids were pretty frequent; and every once in a while, or so the tales told, something nasty would come through the Dragons’ Eyes, the stone circles which acted as gateways between the worlds. In this, the tribes stood as a bastion between the Otherworld of the dragons and the southern cities; but they never received any thanks for it.

So despite an overall peaceable way of life, the tribes required warriors, and Sam had been training since he was old enough not to stab himself with his own knife. But everything about their people required a different kind of leadership: their religion, their philosophy, their natural gifts - that so-called ‘magic’ the city folk despised. It required people of a more spiritual nature, those who could understand and guide others in the safe exercise of their powers, and advise the war leaders in harnessing the supernatural to back their feats of arms. In short, behind every tribal warleader there stood a shaman; and no warrior would act to gainsay the word of these powerful advisors. 

The shaman of Sam’s tribe was Misoori, a plump, motherly woman whose dark skin proclaimed her origins from even further south than the aggrandising city dwellers. She was benevolent, but redoubtable, with a sharp tongue for the foolish. And her powers, though not formidable, were acute; she could read men’s minds and see right to the heart of the truth in any matter. So when Sam came bursting into her yurt like a wild thing without so much as a common courtesy, dishevelled and incoherent, she did not panic or scold or question, or look even slightly startled. She treated him with firm but soothing patience, as though gentling a frightened animal or child.

“Samael!” she greeted him warmly by his full name, getting up unhurriedly and coming over to take him carefully by the arm, patting his shoulder and guiding him over to a pile of cushions. She clucked in sympathy over the distress she could feel radiating from the young warrior in waves.

“My, my, that was some dream. Come and sit, child; we will talk all about it; but first, I will make us some tea.”

Sam opened his mouth to object, with all the urgent impetuosity of the young, but Misoori forestalled him sternly.

“No, Sam; sit, and calm yourself. There is nothing to be gained from all this excitement. What has happened, happened; it is in the past, there is no present urgency. We will talk about your mother, but in a civilised manner. Now sit there and collect your thoughts while I pour the tea.”

She moved to the central firepit as Sam digested the fact that she had mentioned his mother, without him saying a word, and busied herself with the great iron kettle which hung suspended over the flames, simmering away all day in case of callers. She ladled the steaming brew into two clay beakers and stirred a generous spoonful of wild honey into each.

“Careful now, the water is near boiling,” she warned as she handed Sam his cup, along with some bread baked with honey and dried fruit, fully aware that the best way to calm frazzled nerves was via the stomach. Sam tore at the bread automatically, barely registering the flavour as he chewed and gulped like a starveling, impatient to get to the subject of his visit.

“Now then,” Misoori said as she lowered herself, with just a little difficulty, to the cushions beside the young man. “You have dreamed about your mother, that much I can tell; and there was violence, and heartbreak, and you need to know if what you saw was a true seeing. So come, child; tell me all about your dream, and I will see what can be made of it.”

So Sam sat and described his dream, or vision, to Misoori while he cradled his beaker between his hands, the steam rising to his nose fragrant with herbs, soothing and clearing his fretted thoughts even before he had begun to drink. By the time it had cooled enough for him to take a cautious sip, the tale was done, and Misoori sat nodding, her brows gathered in a pensive frown.

“We never knew what had happened to Maire,” she said eventually, slowly. “She vanished overnight, and we searched; of course we looked for her, high and low, but never a trace could we find. Only the scorch marks just inside the stones; but there was nothing to tell what they might mean, or whether they were connected to your mother at all. The energies in that place are hard to read; the currents are so strong, finding an individual thread would be like listening for a voice in a tornado. I’m sorry, Sam; I can’t give you answers; but I can tell you that what you saw was real. You have had your first seeing, Samael, and it was a powerful one. Welcome, child, to your wisdom.”

Sam took a gulp of his tea to hide his disappointment. He had come running here for explanations, but it seemed he had more to reveal to the shaman than the other way around. Still, it was something to know that he had had a true vision, that he wasn’t just imagining things. He brushed away the fact that this meant he had awakened to his own powers; it seemed inconsequential beside finding out what had happened to his mother. What little he could find out from his dream. He frowned.

“So… is that it, then?” he asked. “I learn the truth, at long last, but there’s nothing to be done about it? I can’t avenge my mother’s death against long-gone spirits. I suppose we can perform the funeral rites now, but with no… with no body to burn, and her gone so long, would it even make a difference? Misoori, do you think my dream; do you think it was my mother, reaching out to me, her spirit asking for safe passage to the Otherworld? Has she been wandering all this time, waiting for my abilities to wake up and let her in?”

Misoori felt his anguish and laid a comforting hand on his arm. “Let’s not leap to such hasty conclusions,” she said. “I never did get the sense that your mother had passed away; though I said nothing, because I did not want to give your father false hope, especially as time went on without word. Your dream now, that is very suggestive. You said the flames did not seem to burn her, isn’t that right?”

“No, but… but she was gone, and I thought… if it was a sending, from her, I mean, she wouldn’t want… she smiled at me, and I thought… she was just trying to be kind?” Sam stuttered out, clutching his beaker of tea and staring miserably at the older woman. He was desperate for confirmation but hope warred with lifelong despair, his belief in his mother’s death. Because if she was not dead, then the only reasonable conclusion was that she had abandoned him, and that was a worse pain to bear by far.

“Visions do not try to be kind, Sam,” Misoori said, gently. “They are the naked truth, stripped of all the pretences with which we comfort ourselves in the waking world. If Maire did not burn up in the flames you saw, then… I do not know what it means, exactly, but given the situation… the location… yes.” She nodded, and her expression firmed, becoming resolute. “My certain guess is that your mother crossed over to the Otherworld, with the assistance of the dragons. They sent the fire, to punish her attackers; but they claimed her in payment, as they have been known to do. The dragons guard us, they are our benefactors; but they do not serve us and their power comes at a price.”

“They wouldn’t hurt her, would they?” Sam said, anxiously, imagining his mother a helpless prisoner, caged or chained, in lifelong servitude; weeping for her lost family, cursed never to return.

“No, of course not,” Misoori soothed him at once. “If your mother is with them, indeed, then she is not bound, except by her own sense of what is right and due; the dragons do not keep any who are unwilling.”

So she had abandoned him, in effect. Surely the dragons would have let her come back, at least from time to time, to check on her infant son, her grieving husband? But she had chosen to stay, if what Misoori guessed was true. He felt the betrayal like a heavy stone in his stomach, turning the tea bitter on his tongue.

“Samael,” Misoori put her arm around his broad shoulders, gave him a squeezing hug. “It was only a guess; I cannot know for certain where your mother is, or why she stayed away. I am sure that she lives; and I know without a shadow of doubt that she loves you. I well remember the joy that lit up her face each time she looked at you; you were her darling Sammy, her beautiful baby boy. She would never have abandoned you willingly. Be sure that whatever keeps her in the Otherworld, there is good reason for it, and it is nothing to slight you.”

Sam remembered the look on his mother’s face as she had turned to him, beckoning through the enveloping flames. Misoori claimed that visions were the ungarnished truth, and what he had seen there supported the shaman’s words; love, and longing, and a sadness as of weary acceptance, as though she wished she could have been there for him too. But why come to him now; why wait all this time for his powers to ripen, when the truth could so easily have been shown to Misoori herself? At least then, he and his father could have been a little comforted in the knowledge that Maire was safe in the Otherworld and not dead as they had all supposed.

“Misoori…” he said, slowly. “Why send me the vision at all? Now, I mean, after so long. Surely it has to mean more than just giving me the truth of what happened, the night she left us. She asked me to remember her, and… she said ‘all will be well’. If all she wanted was for me to be at peace… she could have given you the message, couldn’t she, when I was still a child? But she waited until now, as if… As if there’s something only I can do with the knowledge, now that I’m an adult, and come into my powers.” Sam came to a slow realisation and stared at Misoori, hope kindling in his heart. “I think…” he murmured, “she wants me to come and look for her. That’s it, isn’t it? I can find my mother and - I can bring her home!”

The shaman was nodding gently, her gaze serious and intent. “I believe you may be right, Sam,” she answered. “Or perhaps she was prevented from communicating with me, all this time, and only now is she able to get through to you. One thing only is certain in all this; there is only one way to obtain the answers you seek, and that is to ask the dragons themselves. You must go to the Dragon’s Eye and meditate, and wait for one of them to commune with you. If they find you worthy, if you truly are chosen for this task, then a dragon will come, and you will be able to speak with it.”

“Did you never try to speak with the dragons then, to find out what happened?” Sam asked, less resentful than curious. He knew Misoori would have left no stone unturned.

“Oh, I tried,” she told him, her voice very soft and just a little sad. “But you must understand, Sam; the dragons do not always come. Our people, we hold the knowledge and the power, the potential to speak with these great beings; but it is actually very rare for such a communion to take place. Very few among us have earned the title, Dragonwilde; those with whom the dragons speak directly. It may be that you do not meet a dragon at the circle; but you may be granted further visions, and those alone would be well worth the endeavour.”

“I understand,” said Sam, eager for answers and too full of self-confidence to consider that _he_ might not meet a dragon. It seemed, to him, a foregone conclusion, and he was impatient to get started; excited at the double prospect of encountering the creatures he had adored and looked up to his entire life, and finding his long-lost parent.

Misoori smiled and shook her head at his impetuosity, which he broadcast so clearly. “Young man,” she chided him playfully, but with some weight of seriousness, “it is good to be confident, but wise not to be too brash where dragons are concerned. Never take them for granted, for that is a sure way to disappointment. There are some conditions to be met, and I think you are just the sort of person for whom they were designed.”

Sam grinned, unrepentant. “Tell me your conditions, Misoori, I feel ready to take on anything!”

“All right then,” she said. “Samael, I am sending you on a vision quest. You must go to the Eye of the Dragon and meditate there for as long as it takes until you have what you need. You must not step foot outside the circle, except to take care of necessities, and you must not desecrate the ground within by fire. Think hard the whole time; concentrate on what it is you seek. You may sleep, because the visions - and dragons - come most easily through dreams, but you may find that sleep eludes you; that is no matter. Sleeping or waking, as long as you focus on your goals, wisdom will come to you. Now. You should go at once, while the seeing is still fresh in your mind, and without stopping to talk to anyone else; I will let your father know what it is you are doing. And you should not stop to gather supplies; I will give you enough food to sustain you, and there is a stream nearby, but there is little else you will need; go exactly as you are and with what little you have.”

“Um… You might have noticed,” Sam pointed out, “but I didn’t even stop to get dressed when I woke up. What if I have to journey into the Otherworld to look for my mother? I can’t cross over like this!”

Misoori gave him an enigmatic smile. “If you cross, then the dragons will look after you. And I am sure a hunter-warrior like you has the ingenuity to make do. Consider it a lesson in controlling your impulses, if you like.”

“What about a weapon, though?” Sam asked. “All I have is my knife, and I can’t use my teeth and claws like a dragon!”

“You can take a bow,” Misoori allowed. “That way, you won’t be dependent on the dragons to hunt for you, either. I have one you can borrow; then you won’t be delayed by questions. Come now, boy!” She clapped her hands together suddenly, startling him. “Time moves along while you sit here, and your visions move with it like a leaf floating down a river. You must get up and follow them, back to the source; the Dragon’s Eye is the spring of all wisdom, and it is there you will find all that you need.”

Thus encouraged, and with borrowed bow, a quiver of arrows and a pouch of bread, Sam slipped out of Misoori’s yurt at the edge of the village and ran off across the endless plain of whispering, wind-bent grasses. He made straight for the stone circle that dominated the landscape, that ancient and most holy focal point where all the energies of the dragons were concentrated; a gateway to another world and, he hoped, his heart’s desire.


	3. Chapter 3

Patience had never been Sam’s strongest virtue, and hunger and exhaustion were wearing down his resolve. It was warmer than he had expected; it was only late spring and he had worried about the nights, especially since he couldn’t light a fire, but the air within the stones seemed warm and still, as though another season reigned here altogether. The ground wasn’t terribly comfortable to sleep on though and he didn’t have much to eat, only Misoori’s meagre stock of fruited flatbread, which he was eking out into just two small meals a day. She had told him to spend as little time as possible outside the circle, which meant hunting for game was out. He tried to spend his time meditating, as she had told him, thinking about his vision; about all the tales he had heard of the mysterious Otherworld beyond the stone portals; and (chiefly) about dragons. But boredom and discomfort kept pushing his thoughts off track.

By the third night, he had started to think no dragon would appear. Was beginning to wonder if they even existed, or if it was all an elaborate hoax; not necessarily malign, but a way for the shamans to rally the tribes and maintain control of a spirited, independent people. He had grown up listening to the tales, images of the great dragons soaring in his mind and (ordinary) dreams. All his life, the pinnacle of his ambition had been to meet one, to become one of the tribal elite; Dragonwilde, companion to the great wyrms. His people revered them as nature spirits, almost as gods - great, wise, powerful in magic, guardians and guides of humanity. They connected with the chosen, lucky few, communicating from their homes in the Otherworld, that mystical place that bordered his world, intersecting it - according to legend - at sites like this, where he now sat, increasingly despondent. 

He had the steadily growing suspicion that he had been had, or even worse; that he had been weighed and found wanting; and the humiliation gnawed a pit in his stomach. Was this, he thought bitterly, the whole point of the exercise; the revelation that dreams belonged to one’s childhood, that true wisdom and leadership did not spring from sitting around, nearly naked, inside a circle of pointless hunks of rock? Perhaps the true test of his worth was how quickly he came to this realisation, accepted it, got over his disappointment, and returned home; chastened, but wiser. Misoori would give him tea, pat his shoulder, and smile; and they would talk together as equals, about how the world really worked, and his place in it now that he was a man. 

The scenario was all too believable, but the hole in his centre felt like a gaping chasm, ready to swallow him up. He didn’t even want to contemplate what it might mean about his mother; if she was not with the dragons, then… He felt sure he ought to get up and go home, shaking off his silly dragon dreams like dust; but if he stood up now, his soul would crumble and scatter in the wind. What to do; wait one more night, in the hollow certainty that it was all for nothing, to feel even worse in the morning? Or gather the tatters of his pride and return now, boldly, to commiserate with Misoori, who was at least a real, living, breathing being and not a will o’ the wisp of bedtime stories?

He might not be patient, and he might not be the swiftest to grasp reality, but he was no coward. Better to leave now, and try to laugh off the lesson. Sam stood stiffly, trying to ignore the spreading ache which had moved on from his belly, now carving out his heart -

And that was when he heard the voice in his head, directionless, but reverberating softly as though reflected from each of the surrounding stones. 

“Leaving so soon?” the voice said. “Without even a greeting? That’s a little rude, after I’ve come all this way.”

The voice wasn’t chiding; it was deep, gravelly, and gently amused. Sam stared, twisting his head this way and that as his jaw hung open, but he could see no one. Certainly nothing to indicate the presence of a dragon. How long had it been here, watching him, invisible; laughing silently as he wrestled with his emotions? Indignation surged up, but before he could speak, the voice addressed him again.

“I only just got here; what, you think I sit inside this thing, just waiting for someone to come by? I have a life of my own to lead, you know. I came as fast as I could.”

Sam throttled down his irritation. This was what he wanted! Dragons were real, one was talking to him right now, and he was going to start their relationship by arguing? A soft, rumbling chuckle met that thought, like pebbles sliding down an eroding riverbank, and -

“Are you reading my mind?” he finally managed to give voice to his thoughts, trying with limited success to curb the pique that rose again at this invasion of privacy.

“Well, if you will insist on thinking so loud…” the voice replied, still with that playful tone. Not quite making fun of him, but… amused, definitely, and indulgent. It was the bantering sort of tone people took with those younger than themselves, when they considered they were being a little foolish. He supposed it had that right; being a dragon, it was likely to be far older and wiser than he… if it even was a dragon. How was he to tell? Could this be a trick, or a trap...?

This time, the voice seemed to be waiting, so he asked it carefully, “Look… I mean no offence, but, who are you? Right now you’re just a voice in my head; are you a dragon? You could be anybody.” It could be a hallucination, brought on by lack of food and sleep. That was another way to explain the legends, without accusing the shamans of outright deception.

Another chuckle, deep and rich and rolling. Whoever the voice belonged to, he was certainly affording it entertainment. But when it spoke again, approval tinged its tone.

“That’s good; you’re sharp. Don’t take anything for what it seems. So. You want to see me?”

Sam’s eyes widened and his breath hitched, just a little, as his heart rate increased. “Yes, please,” he said, keeping his own voice measured, but, yes yes YES! A dragon! Oh, how he wanted to see a dragon… He knew he had no hope of hiding that reaction, decided it didn’t matter. So he had a bit of a case of hero worship; as long as the creature lived up to his expectations, that was all right, it would have earned it.

That chuckle again, rumbling all around him and through his mind… almost a growl, or… more like purring. Pleased.

“Close your eyes, then.”

What? How could he see with his eyes closed? Was this another trick? Was it waiting, hidden somehow behind the stones, ready to pounce the moment he let his guard down? Sam scanned the perimeter of the circle, turning on the spot, but there was nothing out of place.

“If you want to see me, you have to close your eyes,” the voice elaborated, speaking slowly as though Sam might be hard of understanding. He gave a mental shrug and did as he was told.

“Good.” Approval again. “Now. Imagine the circle within your mind. Concentrate. See it, just as it was a moment ago.”

Sam summoned up the memory of the stones as he had just witnessed them, sun warmed grey and spattered with lichen, leaning inwards a little like a ring of confidential listeners to their conversation. The grass within the circle shivered slightly in the breeze, and puffy white clouds drifted by overhead. He was facing south, and the late afternoon sun warmed his right side; shadows stretched towards him from that side of the circle, short and fat like stubby fingers clutching at the ground.

“Excellent. You’re good at this; a natural!” the voice enthused. “Now turn around.”

He nearly opened his eyes, but screwed them tight shut; turned on the spot, stepping round so that he was facing, as far as he could tell, in the opposite direction. His mental view spun with him, a little clumsily, but he knew that on that side, behind him, rose the biggest dolmen. Its capstone was a threatening weight, tilted yet immovable in centuries of frozen free-fall between irregular pylons, the right pillar sunken into the earth…

Mist wove across his mind’s eye, shrouding the stones in a milky veil. The sun shone dimly into the clearing as though through a translucent pearl, the plains beyond the circle eclipsed by a bubble of fog. The henge stood out against the whiteness like broken teeth, dark and grinning, not quite closing in. He didn’t feel trapped, exactly; more contained. Held, as though in some giant hand, raised up for inspection, and the stones were claws, not fangs…

Movement, then, somewhere in the mist before him and at the periphery of his mental vision; around the circle, off to both sides. Large. Encircling. The predator, stealing up on its prey…

“I’m not hunting you. There’s nothing to be afraid of.” The voice again, amused but encouraging. “Look. Look into the mist. I’m here. Open your mind, and see me. You’ve almost got it…”

Sam strained forwards, without moving his feet, peering into the mists of his imagination with his eyes tight shut. There; was that...? Darkness, a vast shape, bulking around the outer circumference of the circle. The mist roiled, and thinned, and a greenish light winked in and out among the fleeting tatters, as though the sun sparkled off something shiny. Then two of the lights seemed to steady and grow brighter, moving towards him in tandem. Eyes; they were glowing eyes, as green as moss, shining with an inner light all their own, and as he gazed, mesmerised, a great head broke through between the stones. It emerged from the mist like a bather exiting the steam-hut, held low to the ground on a snaking neck. The head alone was easily as long as he was tall, scaled and dark. It was spined with faceted columns of what looked like crystal, bright green and glassy; and a great shield-scale lay over the nose like armour plating of obsidian, gleaming smooth. It was gloriously, unmistakably, a dragon. 

A very peculiar feeling bubbled up within Sam, as all the longings of his childhood took partial form in front of him. He was, all at once, awed and elated; drawn to the creature’s magnificent beauty, and yet struggling with self-doubt as he tried to squash his incomprehension of why such a being would want anything to do with him, a puny human mortal. Above anything else, he desperately wanted to touch it; to feel the heat and the texture of the scaled, leathery hide, to hug his body close against that huge nose and just wallow in his relief at its existence. And that, he thought with a guilty start, was really not the way to go about meeting his first ever dragon…

“Not that I mind,” the dragon interrupted, drawling with lazy amusement, “but visions don’t mesh so well with the physical. I’m not really here, not in your world; I’m inside your head. If you want to get all touchy-feely, you’ll have to cross over to my side.”

“I… can I do that?” Sam almost squeaked. “You’ll bring me across?”

The dragon blinked, a slow shuttering that momentarily extinguished the gleaming light of its eyes. “Isn’t that what you’ve come for?” it asked, as though people stepped across the threshold between worlds every day. Maybe they did; maybe it met half a dozen of them every morning before breakfast, and Sam’s idolatry was nothing more to it than an introduction…

“We are really going to have to work on your mental barriers,” the dragon chided. “As it happens, you’re the first human I’ve met in - a long time. I’d forgotten how excitable you can get. I’m sure the novelty will wear off in a few days and then we might actually manage a sensible conversation.” Its tone was less sardonic than its words; almost indulgent.

“Sorry,” Sam muttered, feeling foolish. “I’m just…” - Nervous, excited, honoured - “a little overwhelmed. And riding high on lack of sleep.”

“Yes, and food,” the dragon replied. “We’ll have to do something about that. What is all this nonsense with you humans, starving yourselves before your heads work properly? There’ll be no need for any of that on my side of the portal.”

“So… what do I have to do?” Sam asked, wondering what it would feel like.

“You don’t have to do anything,” said the dragon. “Just stand still, and let me…”

The dragon pulled its head back out of sight and the mist began to swirl thicker about the stones and started to edge into the clearing. Sam cracked open an eye, just to peek one last time at the world he was leaving, but gasped and opened both eyes wide as the mist rolled in for real, outside his mind. It filled the circle, blotting out the sun, reducing the light to a pale, wavering quality like reverse shadows. He felt strange for a moment, as though he had stepped outside his own body and was looking at himself, standing in the centre of the circle, and his displaced spirit felt as light and free as a leaf on the wind. Then he felt a sharp, steady tugging and was back in his body once more. He wobbled on his feet and nearly stumbled; when he looked up, the mist was clearing as rapidly as it had come, and coiled around the outside of the circle was a great, dark, serpentine form…

The head poked back in between the stones of the dolmen, rushing up towards him, and nudged him full in the chest so that he staggered backwards.

“Hey there,” the voice rumbled, still in his mind, but somehow stronger and more focused, not as echoey as before. “How about that hug, now?”

Sam laughed, and stepped towards it. Him. He was sure it was male, not that the shamans taught how to identify gender in dragons; most had never even met one, after all. Tentatively, he put out his hand, resting it on the great shiny shield-scale. The dragon huffed at him encouragingly, the warm air of his breath puffing over Sam’s skin with a scent not unlike dry leaves; autumnal, earthy. Sam threw caution to the wind and acted as he’d wanted to since the dragon first appeared, throwing his arms around the broad muzzle and leaning in. It was a little like hugging a tree, the hide rough but only slightly scratchy, like bark worn smooth, and this time he could feel the reverberations against his chest as the rumbling chuckle sounded for real, not just in his mind. 

A hug seemed as good as a handshake, and ought to be followed by introductions, Sam thought; besides, he couldn’t just keep thinking of the creature as ‘the dragon’. It - he - could speak, so he must surely have a name? He drew back a little and reached up to stroke the leathery hide under the eyes where it was smoother, softer, unable to keep his hands away.

“What should I call you?” he asked, a little shyly, then added belatedly, “I’m Sam.”

“My name is,” the dragon started, and then issued a long string of rumbling syllables that sounded almost like language, if thunder could speak; if there were words in the clatter of falling rocks or the roaring of a waterfall. There was no way Sam would be able to pronounce any of it, but he caught a couple of sounds at the beginning and end that almost made vocal sense. He realised now why the dragons in the stories were named as they were, with a strange catch between syllables; it signified missing sounds, impossible for the human throat to articulate.

“Um, I can’t… Would it be all right if I… Can I call you D’ean?” he asked, and the answering snort sounded like a shrug.

“If you like,” the dragon answered. “You’re the one who’ll be calling me by it, so if that suits your limited vocal chords, it’s fine by me. You humans have such short names, but then I suppose your lives are short too, by our standards. And you’re short.” He was laughing again, and he nosed at Sam, who had to plant himself firmly, legs apart, to keep from being pushed over.

“Hey, I’m only short next to you!” Sam retorted, fending the big head away. “I’ll have you know I’m pretty tall for a human; some people consider me a giant!”

“Little giant,” D’ean rumbled, amused, and he snorted again. The explosion of air blew right up Sam’s loincloth, enough to cause the supple hide to ripple and twitch, threatening to expose him.

“Hey, cut that out!” he grumbled, tugging on the goatskin ineffectually. 

D’ean just laugh-snorted again, deliberately. “You aren’t wearing much,” he remarked. “I thought you humans liked to cover yourselves up?”

“Not when we’re sleeping,” Sam muttered, almost inaudibly; he knew by now that the dragon would have no problem lifting the sense of his words straight from his mind. “I didn’t stop to get dressed and Misoori made me come here only in what I stood up in.” He was a little embarrassed, but after all, D’ean was completely naked; dragons did not wear clothes, so he supposed it didn’t really matter.

D’ean snuffled at him inquisitively. “I like it,” he said. “You smell good; natural. Not like all those bits of dead animal your people are usually draped in. If you lost that piece as well, you’d-”

“Yes, I’m sure, but not going to happen,” Sam interrupted firmly, feeling his cheeks heat. The dragon might not care but he wasn’t going to run around in the altogether even if there weren’t any other humans to see him; and what about when he met up with his mother?

D’ean chuckled, but didn’t press him further. “Why don’t you come on out of the circle?” he suggested instead. “Not much point crossing to another world if you’re just going to stand around inside a ring of stones all day.” 

He drew his head back as he spoke, slithering back through the granite archway, and Sam followed as though pulled by invisible cords, reluctant to lose sight of the dragon for even a moment. The world on the outside of the circle looked much the same as the one he had just left (assuming he had really travelled anywhere at all) but he didn’t have much interest in any of that; his eyes devoured D’ean as he saw him clearly now, unhindered by the towering dolmens.

The dragon was crouching, belly to the ground, which meant at the highest point of his shoulder, he rose only a head or two higher than Sam. But his hindquarters and tail stretched around the henge, out of sight, and his great wings, though furled and resting on the ground, peaked up over his back to twice a man’s length. Fully extended, they would be vast, Sam thought, drinking it all in. D’ean was truly magnificent, everything and more than Sam had ever imagined a dragon would be, real and solid and commanding. He didn’t want to look away, and wasn’t even sure he could. He recalled how the stories sometimes warned that a person could get lost just looking into a dragon’s eyes, fascinated like a rabbit by a snake. He was mesmerised and he wasn’t even looking at the eyes!

D’ean shoved his head against Sam’s chest again to get his attention. “Want to come for a fly around?” he asked, so casually that the full import didn’t sink in for a few moments. When it did, Sam gasped, the peculiar feeling from before surging up again in his chest, constricting his lungs with wonder. 

“You mean… ride on your back?” he gulped, thinking his wildest dreams were all coming true within a handful of heartbeats. Not only had he met his dragon, and been allowed - not just permitted, but encouraged - to touch him; now he was being invited to fly with him. He felt a little dizzy from the pleasure; or maybe that was due to his hunger and tiredness. He hoped he wouldn’t fall off; that would be humiliating, if not fatal.

That now familiar chuckle rolled into his ears and mind simultaneously, like the swell of a river over gravel, sweeping around him. “I won’t let you fall, little one,” D’ean assured him.

Sam stifled the squawk of indignation that rose in his throat at the affectionate term. He was used to being the tallest, rising head and shoulders above most of his people, and it would take some getting used to, being considered small by another. But he found he didn’t actually mind; D’ean was so large, and so vital, any other creature would seem small by comparison; even the great elk of fabled history, whose massive antlers could be found, now and then, sunken and preserved in bogs. Standing next to such an impressive being didn’t diminish Sam in the slightest; he had fully expected to feel humble in a dragon’s presence, but in fact he just felt drawn to him. It was a fond feeling of closeness and familiarity that was at odds with the short time he had known him.

Sam’s relative height did come in handy though, as he scrambled awkwardly to sit between D’ean’s shoulders, using the dragon’s bent foreleg as a mounting block. A shorter person would have found it difficult. He tried not to think about how he must look, grateful there was nobody else to observe his graceless ascent. It was bad enough the way D’ean snorted with mirth and chivvied him with a threatened “Need a boost up with my nose under your gangly butt?”

Finally he was up, and perched astride the dragon’s neck, gripping with his knees on either side as he would a horse. He was acutely aware of the feel of scales against the bare skin of his thighs and ass, very different from horsehair; smooth and shiny like water polished pebbles, but warm. To distract himself, he looked around, taking in the scenery from this new vantage point.

“Seem any different from back home?” D’ean asked. It didn’t, really, and Sam felt slightly disappointed; not that he’d known what to expect, but he would have thought another world would look at least a little different.

“Wait ‘til you see it from the air,” D’ean suggested, his tone full of enthusiasm. “Now that’s a sight you won’t get anywhere else! Hold tight while I take off.”

Sam was startled as D’ean began to move, suiting sudden action to his casual warning, and he grabbed ahold of two of the crystal spikes jutting up from the dragon’s spine. D’ean rocked, throwing Sam forward and back again as he got to his feet, and Sam’s elevation increased by more than half as much again. He suddenly felt a little nervous, as the realisation sank in that they were going to be flying much higher than this; and there was nothing holding him to D’ean’s back but the strength of his own grip. He tightened his grasp, fingers clasping white knuckled about their anchoring spine.

The dragon turned away from the stone circle and his neck went straight as he stretched his head forward; all of a sudden, they were moving, gliding almost without any perceptible motion, very different to even the smoothest canter of a horse. Sam could hear the swishing of the grass beneath the great clawed feet; it sounded like the rushing of wind before a storm. Faster and faster they arrowed across the plain and Sam thought of how far geese had to race along the water before they could take off. D’ean was a thousand times bigger than any goose, however did he manage to get airborne at all? As if in answer to that thought, suddenly the great wings snapped wide with a booming crack that reverberated like thunder. Sam glanced down and to the side, noting the stretch of the leather wing vanes, and he realised that even if he did let go, the broad sweep of the wings would catch him; he would have trouble falling off even if he rolled around up here, but -

“Don’t do that,” D’ean advised him, drily. “I’m fast, but I don’t know if I could catch you in time if you went plummeting like a stone. Ready now? Lift off in three -”

He surged forwards, his pace impossibly increasing, and the wind whipped Sam’s hair behind him and chilled his bare chest.

“Two -”

Sam looked ahead and realised that they were rapidly approaching a line of trees; he assumed D’ean knew what he was doing, but they were rising up awfully fast…

“One -”

The wings tilted, angling into the wind of the dragon’s passage, and Sam could hear the subtle change of sound as air slid beneath the outstretched double span. Suddenly, instead of fighting them, it was their ally; flowing around the wings, it pushed up, lifting them with a dizzying suddenness so that the ground receded as though they were falling upwards into the sky. The trees dropped away below them and the heavens expanded in a vista of turquoise as they soared up towards the clouds. Sam threw his head back and laughed with intoxicated delight, his fears blowing away like smoke.

He was flying; he was really flying, on the back of a dragon, and nothing from his wildest dreams could compare with the sensation of release, excitement; of pure, unfettered joy. D’ean opened his jaws and let loose a ringing roar of sound, clangorous as a smithy, and Sam didn’t need words to understand the wash of feeling that surged into his mind as the sound flooded his ears. He might be human, mortal, earthbound; D’ean a dragon, ancient and unlimited; but up here, he felt their souls merge together as one, hearts and minds alike, glorying in the freedom of the skies.


	4. Chapter 4

Nothing in Sam’s life, past or future, would ever compare to his first flight on dragon-back. D’ean rose, circling, until they passed the cloud layer and wispy puffs drifted below them like the southlanders’ sheep. He could make out little below that but a vast green bowl curving up on one side into a rim of jagged, snow capped mountains, lidded overall with a spreading canvas of purest blue. The sun was hot on his bare shoulders, and the dragon’s hide made for a comfortably warm seat, but the air up here was extremely cold, and the wind of flight didn’t help. Sam also found it difficult to draw breath, as though the air this high was too refined for the lungs of beings doomed to walk upon the earth. 

It was spectacular, it made his heart soar and he didn’t want to go back down; but he did begin to worry that he wasn’t cut out for this, and the thought pierced him like a knife that he wasn’t worthy to be companion to a dragon if he couldn’t withstand its element.

“Don’t fret youngling,” D’ean spoke into his mind, comforting despite the edge of laughter. “We don’t have to fly this high all the time; I just wanted to show you. And maybe there’s a reason for all those clothes your people wear, after all. We’ll have to get you some furs, so you don’t freeze to my back like an icicle. It’s not your fault you were born a feeble human instead of a dragon! Hold tight now, we’re going down...!”

The dragon stooped, arching his body and folding back his wings, and Sam’s stomach was dislodged and tried to float out through his throat as suddenly they were dropping out of the sky. The wind whistled in his ears and branded his flesh like plunging into an icy lake in winter, and for several moments it didn’t matter how thin the air had become, because he simply couldn’t take a breath at all.

Then they levelled out with another thundering snap of D’ean’s wings, the wind died down and Sam could breathe again, without fighting for every lungful. He gasped, drawing in fresh air in panting gulps; never had it seemed so sweet, like water to the thirsty. It was still cold, but no longer burned his skin like frost. He took a look around; they were low enough now for him to make out the landscape as it rolled beneath them, and he noticed D’ean’s shadow flying along below and slightly ahead, as though they were racing together; they must be heading directly away from the sun, which at this time of day meant they were flying northeast, towards the mountains. He looked forward, along the green spined length of D’ean’s neck and head, and thrilled at the view of the range which his people called the Dragon’s Spine. At this distance it was just an indistinct jumble of tooth-like points on the horizon, their tips glittering silver in the sunlight, but it was a sight that never failed to impress.

“Enjoying the view?” D’ean rumbled, then he started to curve around, as though to give Sam a rolling panorama; but Sam realised he was circling back to their starting point.

“Do you live in those mountains?” he asked softly, trusting D’ean to pick up his thoughts even if he couldn’t hear the words themselves. He thought it would be a fine thing to see them up close; but it was a long way, and probably too cold, he was already shivering and his skin was prickled with goose bumps.

“Yes; that’s why it took me a while to fly out to you,” D’ean explained. Then suddenly changing the subject, his mental voice sounding sharp and excited, “Quick! Look left. Down below.”

Sam looked down and saw a herd of horses galloping away, streaming over the grassland in a pearly ribbon of shining flanks and tossing manes. Every one of them was a pure white that flashed in the sun like silver; or no, the flashing was from… were those horns? Horses weren’t horned… but these animals were, each one crowned with a single spire that thrust wickedly together like a thicket of bobbing spears as they charged along.

“Are those...?” Sam wondered, but D’ean only answered shortly, “Dinner.”

“You don’t hunt unicorns...!” Sam blurted, scandalised; only to be met with another of the dragon’s vibrating chuckles that rolled along the length of his body and up through Sam’s.

“Why, what did you think I ate?” he asked. “Something my size isn’t made for chasing rabbits, and deer are good, but they’re too shy; they keep to the forest’s edge, and I can’t get between the trees. Unicorns are a dragon’s specialty; they roam the plains, and we roam the skies, in search of them. We’re the reason they have those horns; makes it tricky to just drop onto their backs and grab one out of the herd. You have to single one out, chase it away from its fellows to stand half a chance. There are easier prey, but unicorn…”

Sam could almost feel him licking his chops as an intense sense of satisfaction rolled off the dragon, imprinting directly onto his mind. “You’re not eating them while I’m around,” he said firmly. “If you take me to the edge of the forest, I’ll catch a deer for you; I don’t have a problem getting through the trees. Or I can chase it out so you can catch it yourself.” Unicorns held a special place in the mythology of his people, not quite so revered as dragons but still a creature of awe and wonder. He didn’t blame D’ean, he knew the dragon was just doing what came naturally, but he wasn’t about to witness the slaughter of something so beautiful if there was any way to help it. He felt D’ean shrug with a roll of his shoulders beneath Sam’s ass, and an accompanying mental wave of indifference.

“You don’t know what you’re missing,” D’ean pointed out, “but if you’re going to be so squeamish, I can hunt when you’re not around. Sure you don’t want me to bring you back a haunch...?”

“No,” Sam answered, his tone clipped with distaste. D’ean just chuckled, and he realised the dragon was only teasing. He let the subject drop; it wasn’t for him to dictate what D’ean should or should not eat, and after all, dragons and unicorns must have coexisted here for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. He turned back to the view of the grasslands rippling at speed below them, the sun gleaming off the younger blades as though they were sailing over the choppy waters of a vast lake, wavelets glittering silver in the light. It was beautiful and peaceful and all thoughts of his purpose here were pushed down by the moment. He was at peace within himself, and indescribably happy.

After a while, something began prickling at the edges of Sam’s mind, drifting across the bright bubble of his thoughts like shadows. At first, he just put it down to the cold cramping his limbs and the contrast of his natural mood reasserting itself, balancing out the elation of flight. As they flew on, however, the feeling of unease intensified, until he was sure it wasn’t just him; there was something out there, he could feel it, and what’s more, it came to him suddenly, he recognised it. It was the same feeling from his dream, the sensations he had felt when the shadow creatures took his mother at the stone circle.

“You feel it too?” D’ean spoke into his mind.

“What is it?” Sam whispered, as though whatever was out there might hear him if he spoke aloud; though he still hadn’t mastered this way of speaking with dragons and it felt odd not to give voice to his thoughts at all.

“Shade,” D’ean rumbled, and with the word came a strong projection of emotion: hatred, deep and dark as a yawning pit dug deep into the earth; and a tight, burning anger like the tamped down embers of a fire, ready to be lashed up into fury at a moment’s provocation. And beneath both of those, sliding like predatory pike beneath lake ice, the cold flicker of… fear. D’ean, a dragon, was afraid of the things that had taken Sam’s mother? Sam swallowed.

“What do they want?” he asked. “Are they… are they coming for me?”

There was a pause, then D’ean tilted his head to look back at Sam with one green eye. “No,” he said slowly. “They’re coming for me.”

Sam felt his insides lurch. Whatever D’ean said, he knew with sickening certainty that it was because of him; because of his mother. 

“They’re tracking us to the circle?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

Another pause, then, “They’re gathering at the circle. Trying to cut us off. They know that’s where you have to cross, and…”

D’ean broke off, but Sam could work out the rest. “They want you, but they can’t get to you except when you come out to the circle. It’s my fault; I’ve made you vulnerable.” Had something similar happened, all those years ago, with his mother...?

“Seem to recall I was the one who invited you here, little one.” D’ean’s reply was bright edged in Sam’s mind, like a smile of razored fangs, thirsty for blood. “As for vulnerable… Shall we see what the two of us can do together?”

He threw it out like a challenge, like an invitation, from one fighter to another, without the slightest hesitation despite that undercurrent of fear Sam had sensed. These Shade, whatever they were, might be hunting D’ean, but he was ready to hunt them back with everything he had, and after what Sam had seen in his dream, he was right there with him.

“Just tell me I can hurt them,” Sam growled through gritted teeth, his clenched jaw pulsing. “I have a knife, and arrows; can these Shade bleed?”

“Are your arrows tipped with iron?” asked the dragon, then carried on, sensing Sam’s confirmation without need for speech. “The Shade are vulnerable to that metal, so your weapons will bite. Although I doubt we’ll be meeting the Shade themselves, not under direct sunlight. They have servants, other creatures of this world to do their bidding.”

“If it bleeds, I can kill it,” Sam said to himself, repeating it like a mantra. It wasn’t so much to summon his courage; although this would be his first real, pitched battle. Most of his experience came from hunting and from border raids, he wasn’t used to enemies who stood their ground and put up a fight, but he was game for it. He said the words to himself because he wasn’t sure what he would meet at the Eye of the Dragon, but he was very familiar with the stories the shamans told around the campfire, the creatures that haunted the winter tales, and he had to believe that he could make a difference, even though he was no dragon.

Now they were coming up on the stone circle at last, just as the sun was beginning to sink down into the west and set the sky aflame. He saw the stone columns rear up blackly against the crimson and gold of the sunset, and the prickling, crawling sensation of something not right intensified, like the slimy touch of something cold and rotten against his skin. He stared ahead, but could make out nothing unusual against the stones. Could they be hiding...?

“Probably,” D’ean answered, his calm voice in Sam’s mind a comfort even though they had known one another for only a few hours. Sam had flown with the dragon, it had been a magical experience, and D’ean hadn’t let him fall. He trusted him implicitly now.

“They’re likely to be just outside the circle,” D’ean went on, “lying in wait. We’ll have to land; they know they can’t fight me in the air, and you can’t cross from up here, either.”

Which was why Sam made him vulnerable; if it weren’t for Sam, D’ean could just pass on by, fly right over the circle and go his way, unmolested… They both could, he thought suddenly, they could just fly away back to the mountains and visit D’ean’s lair. There was no pressing reason Sam could think of for going home this soon, and he’d like to see where the dragon lived. He didn’t voice his thoughts though; it would sound too much like cowardice, like turning his back on a fight, but that wasn’t what prompted them. He just felt guilty for dragging D’ean into what was so clearly a trap, and there was so much more to explore in this world; why did he have to go back now?

Whatever he picked up from Sam’s mind, all D’ean said was, “Better to clear the circle now, before they call for reinforcements; then you might never be going home. If we take out whatever they have waiting for us here, they’ll fall back, reconsider their options. If nothing else, it’ll buy us a little time; let them know we’re something to be reckoned with. What do you say, short stuff? Ready to fight by my side?”

“Bring it on,” Sam growled, feeling the old familiar bloodlust begin to rise up at the promise of violence. The chill of their flight dissipated as the Dragon’s Wrath ignited deep within, his muscles coiling with anticipation, and his vision became tinged as though flooded by the setting sun. The rage was banked for now, controlled; but he knew that once they were attacked, it would surge up and possess him. When in the grip of the berserker fury, Sam was a formidable opponent, heedless of pain or self concern, and he felt a sudden kinship with the dragon he was riding, whose own feelings for the Shade came through much like those Sam was feeling now. They would take on D’ean’s enemies together, his knife and arrows to D’ean’s teeth and talons, and they would understand the mistake they were making, trying to block his way back like this. The circle was theirs, his and D’ean’s, and they would stand to the last to keep it so.


	5. Chapter 5

D’ean made an aerial sweep of the henge before landing, but they could see nothing out of the ordinary. The feeling of wrongness however was pounding into Sam’s head in sickening waves, greying his vision and giving him a headache.

“Wouldn’t it be better to land away from the circle, so they can’t trap us inside?” Sam asked, a little hesitantly; maybe it wasn’t his place to be suggesting strategy to a dragon, but that wasn’t going to stop him offering what he considered good advice. It was up to D’ean whether or not he took it.

“A sound plan, if they actually attack,” D’ean replied. “But more likely they won’t. They’re waiting for us to use the circle; that’s when I’ll be off my guard, so that’s when the trap will be triggered. Anyway, the stones will be some protection; reduces the number of directions they can come at us from.”

And what were ‘they’? Sam wondered, if they weren’t the living shadows from his vision...? He winced, as the churning sensation in his mind grew stronger, and hoped the Dragon’s Wrath would help to keep him from disgracing himself.

“You alright up there?” D’ean asked, turning that glowing eye upon Sam again. “You’d better not throw up all over my back…”

“I’ll be… fine,” Sam gritted out, determined he wasn’t going to be taken out by a headache of all things.

“I’ve heard they can have this effect on your kind,” D’ean said conversationally as he banked, soaring around to come in directly over the circle of stones. “You must be a strong one, if it’s hurting this much. Don’t worry, I can take care of it, once we’re down. Just don’t fall off while we’re landing, I have to make a steep drop to get past the stones!”

Sam shook his head as if that would dispel the pain and clung tightly to the crystal spine on D’ean’s neck. The dragon reared back in midair, standing almost vertically as his great wings stretched out, keeping them from plummeting like a stone. They fell quickly, Sam’s stomach dropping; combined with the pulsing in his head, he was nearly ready to retch, but then they were down, D’ean landing improbably lightly on his clawed feet so that Sam barely even felt him reconnect with the earth.

A broad nose curved around and nudged at Sam’s middle. “Off you get, queasy guts,” D’ean said. “You’re not sitting out the fight up there. I’ll soon put you right, then we’ll be having far too much fun for you to pass out on me!” 

A feeling of savage satisfaction came through with the thought; clearly, D’ean relished the idea of battle. Sam wouldn’t normally have been particularly averse to the idea himself, if he hadn’t been feeling so unwell; he was worried he wouldn’t be of any use and might even prove a liability. He slid down from the dragon’s neck, so disoriented he almost tumbled off. The pain was nearly crippling and he staggered as his feet touched the earth, then leaned against D’ean’s foreleg, clutching his head. 

Suddenly he heard a great, hissing sigh and felt a cooling wave of pressure wash over him. He opened his eyes, startled. D’ean’s head hovered right in front of him, his mouth wide open, and a stream of vapour rolled out of it like smoke, billowing around Sam from head to foot. It was like being drenched in mist, and as he breathed in he could smell damp earth and soaked vegetation, all the scents of the grassland after rain. The mist was both soothing and invigorating and the throbbing in his head died away to little more than a niggle.

“Feel better?” D’ean asked, and Sam nodded, standing up straight. He was about to ask how D’ean had done that when he felt something twitch sharply inside his mind, with a brief but agonising jolt of pain, and a dull rumble like a wet, tearing sound rose up all around them.

“Here they come. Better get your weapons ready,” D’ean advised, and Sam quickly unslung his bow and reached to nock an arrow as he stared between the encircling columns. The earth around the henge appeared to be moving, the grass heaving up into low hillocks as though forming into bubbles like water on the boil. As Sam watched, the bubbles burst, the sod splitting apart and peeling back like peeled fruit, and shapes came struggling up from under the ground, shedding soil and plant debris in a pattering hail around them.

As they shook themselves free of the clutching earth, he was able to get a better look. The figures wrenching themselves out of the ground seemed to be human, or humanoid; they were naked and filthy but their heads were hidden by animal skulls, great horned helmets of bare white bone. As they climbed to their feet and began to converge upon the circle, creeping stealthily forward, they made a hair raising noise; a kind of gargling, hissing sound mixed in with a wordless moaning, like the winter wind given life and a loathing for everything whose blood ran warm. 

As they drew nearer, Sam tried to peer through the gaping eye sockets and grinning jaws of the skulls to discern the faces of the men within, but with a chilling lurch of his stomach he realised that there was nothing there; the skulls weren’t some strange form of armour at all, they were the creatures’ actual heads, hollow and empty. The wind gusted up a little and carried the stench of rotting flesh to his nostrils. The approaching figures were wiry and emaciated, little more than skin stretched over bones, and now he could see that beneath the masking layer of dirt, their hide was a sickly greyish colour, livid as fungus or a weeks old bruise. They were unarmed but they held their hands out in front of them, fingers spread to show wickedly sharp talons.

“They’re bone wights,” rumbled D’ean, emphasising the words in Sam’s head with a disgusted growl. “One of the foulest servants of the Shade. Don’t let them touch you; their claws leave wounds that fester and will be hard even for me to heal.”

“Are they even alive?” Sam asked in horror, shrinking back instinctively against D’ean’s flank. He raised his bow, sighting down an arrow at the figure directly across from them. He felt cold and his skin crawled at the thought of what they were facing.

“Not in the way you or I would describe life,” the dragon answered, his thought tinged with both anger and disgust. “Aim for their hearts; that, or taking off their heads, is the only way to put them down for good. You take them out as they approach the circle; I’ll deal with any that get in range, and guard your flanks. Steady now, here they come...!”

Then there was no more time for questions, as the wights closed in and Sam let fly his first arrow. He was a skilled archer and had taken note of D’ean’s advice, and the shot was true, striking the hideous creature just off-centre of its chest. It collapsed with a whistling shriek and the others paused a moment; then leapt forward as though enraged. The battle rage rose up in Sam and his fear and disgust, as well as the last vestiges of the pounding in his head, were drowned out by the familiar, savage joy of fighting. A similar emotion accompanied the low, continual snarl that issued from D’ean’s throat. Sam could feel it rolling off the dragon as tangible as a sound or scent, and he felt a deep sense of rightness, of kinship with the great beast.

Sam shot a second wight and knocked it back, but the arrow embedded high in its chest, over the heart, and he saw the monster reach up and pluck out the offending shaft. The merest trickle of black blood oozed sluggishly from the wound and he understood what D’ean had meant. Then the creatures were upon them, but even as Sam reached for the knife at his leg, he heard the hiss of D’ean’s breath like before and the white mist shot from the dragon’s jaws and rolled out over Sam, the ground within the circle, and the advancing wights.

The touch of D’ean’s breath on Sam’s bare skin was as energising as plunging into a cold spring, but its effect on the undead was incredible. Those caught within the milky vapour shrieked and writhed, their skin peeling away and blackening as though licked by invisible flames. D’ean swung his great head from side to side, the mist swirling in an arc before him, blasting the figures who ran in from the other side of the circle. Sam realised that he didn’t have to worry about his own safety, not with the dragon at his back; he concentrated on nocking one arrow after another to his bow, taking the time to aim at those wights furthest away so that he could thin their ranks before they even came within range of D’ean’s magical mist. He figured out that the best tactic would be for him to face D’ean’s tail and take out the wights coming in behind him. They were many, and one or two evaded his arrows, but D’ean seemed to read his mind and swung his head around to cover them in corrosive fog before Sam could articulate a cry of warning. 

Eventually, Sam shot his last arrow and grimly drew his knife, ready to meet the monsters head-on. But it seemed there was no need; the last few remaining wights were circling warily, just beyond the perimeter of the henge, hesitant to rush in where so many of their fellows lay like decomposing corpses in the grass. If Sam hadn’t run out of arrows, they would make easy targets.

“We should finish this last lot off. I’ll cover you while you retrieve your arrows, then you can take out the cowards at the back,” D’ean echoed Sam’s thought. Sam, doubly bolstered by their imminent victory as well as the Dragon’s Wrath, had no qualms about going among the slain, plucking out what arrows he could salvage to replenish his quiver. D’ean paced in a tight circle alongside him, head snaking out to breathe on any wight which dared to move in and try to attack the human. Sam snagged the final few as they crept around the stones, moaning and gibbering, and the dragon’s breath dissolved the remains until the only evidence of the fight was the trampled grass.

By now, the sun had set and Sam peered around in the twilight, as gloom lay deeper than shadows between the stones. He turned to D’ean to say “I think that’s the last of them,” when something landed on him heavily from above. One wight had climbed up onto the capstone of the great dolmen and hurled itself off as their attention wavered. The blow and the sudden weight clinging to his back nearly drove Sam to his knees, and a sinewy arm wrapped itself around his throat, choking him, while claws raked white-hot furrows along his ribs. As he fought to breathe, the effort was hampered by the stench of the thing, foulest rot clogging his nose and mouth. As though in parody of his struggle, the wight was making a gurgling, hissing noise right by his ear, like a snake burrowing through mud. 

Sam yelled and bucked, scrabbling with all his strength to tear the creature off him; there came a furious roar from overhead, followed by a crunching sound, and a cold stickiness splattered over Sam’s skin as the dragging weight was abruptly torn away. He staggered, staring up, and was just in time to see the wight hanging like a broken doll in D’ean’s great jaws. The dragon shook it, viciously, then snapped his head to the side and sent the creature flying against one of the stone pillars. There was a sickening thud and the crack of bone as the skull hit and flew off, bouncing away over the grass while the body flopped lifeless to the ground. Sam straightened, wincing, and put his hand to his side, hissing as pain flared at the touch.

“Let me see that.” D’ean’s mental voice was insistent and tight with worry. He lowered his head and snuffed gently at Sam’s side, then breathed his cooling mist over the wound while Sam stood patiently, holding one arm rather uncomfortably over his head despite the way it pulled at the gashes over his ribs.

“Hmmm.” A rolling rumble of sound accompanied the wordless anxiety projected into Sam’s head. “Better keep an eye on that. Wight scratches can be nasty. You need cleaning up, too. You have… a little something on you… just there…” D’ean’s tone changed from worry to amusement and he snorted, a deep, huffing chuckle of sound as he sniffed at Sam again. Sam looked down at himself and saw that he was plastered in black slime, which smelled as bad as the monster it had bled out of when D’ean’s fangs had crushed its body.

“Thanks for saving me,” he acknowledged then added a little ruefully, “but why’d you bite it? You could have just breathed on it and then I wouldn’t need a bath.”

“I don’t know; instinct?” D’ean replied. “It was right on top of you and I just wanted it gone. I can help with the blood though. There’s a stream over there, I could pick you up and dump you in...” Sam recoiled, shivering in anticipation of the cold; fighting had warmed him up, but between clouds and water, was he fated always to be cold in this world? 

D’ean chuckled. “Or I could do this, instead…” He flicked out a long, black tongue and swiped it across Sam’s chest; it felt warm and wet and muscular, and Sam’s breath hitched as it caused a very peculiar feeling to bubble up inside him.

“Doesn’t that taste really bad?” he asked, trying to take his mind off the sensation.

“I’ve had better,” D’ean admitted, “but once you get down to the meat underneath, it tastes pretty good.” He set to work then, pushing Sam down to the ground when he started giggling and jerking away because it tickled. D’ean held him down with a claw and lavished him with his tongue, leaving no part of his skin unattended. He even licked up under Sam’s loincloth, ignoring the slightly breathless protest, “HEY, I’m sure no blood found its way up there!”

“Splashback,” D’ean replied smugly, “need to be thorough. This stuff is icky when it dries.” He did seem to have his mind on the job though and only gave Sam a few cursory licks between his legs; still enough to get him rock hard and wanting, and he could feel his cheeks burning, but he was grateful when D’ean, for once, chose not to comment; out of tact, or obliviousness, Sam wasn’t sure.

“I guess… it’s one advantage… to not wearing clothes,” he managed between stifled breaths, trying to deflect his embarrassment. At least he wouldn’t have to do laundry. He could do with finding more to wear though, especially if he was going to do much riding around on D’ean’s back in all weathers. If he returned to his world tonight, he could gather supplies, tell his father and Misoori what was going on, and meet D’ean back at the circle before morning.

D’ean finished washing Sam and drew back, raising his claw to let him up. An odd feeling washed over Sam, and he looked at the dragon sharply. He couldn’t see much in the gathering dusk, but the way D’ean was holding his head and his diffident silence suggested he wasn’t entirely happy.

“What?” Sam asked. “Is there a problem with me going back? We fought the wights to clear the way; hasn’t that worked?”

“You can go home now, if you want to,” D’ean replied with a studied nonchalance that did not fool Sam one bit. That strange emotion teased at Sam’s mind again; a hollow feeling, like a quiet sadness or… loneliness.

“I wasn’t talking about leaving,” Sam said softly, trying to reassure him. “I only just got here, and I like it; even despite the wights. I loved flying, and we fought well together. I just think it would be a good idea to gather some supplies.”

D’ean hung his great head and hummed, a deep rumble underscored with wistful longing.

“What’s the matter?” Sam asked, more forcefully. “There’s something you’re not telling me. I can go home, you just told me that, so… Is it that I couldn’t come back again? Am I limited to just one visit?” That thought had sadness welling up in his own heart; he liked D’ean, far more than this world which was really not much different from his own, except for things he could do without, like the wights and their masters, the Shade. He wouldn’t miss D’ean’s world, but he would miss the dragon. In their short time together he felt that they had grown close; there was some strong but indefinable connection between them, begun from the moment of their first contact and cemented during their battle for control of the henge portal between their worlds. If he couldn’t come back right away, Sam didn’t want to leave.

“It’s not about the coming and going,” D’ean explained, eventually. “If I’m here, I can bring you across, as often as you like. As long as you stay inside the circle…”

“But...?” Sam prompted. There would be no point going back if he couldn’t leave the henge, so what would happen then?

“But time moves… differently between our worlds,” D’ean said, slowly. “Once you leave the circle, to go back to your - village, do you call it? - more time will pass here than it does for you. Something could happen. The Shade will be watching now, and likely to send reinforcements. I could be cut off, or taken down fighting. It would be better to leave the area for a time, until they lose interest; but if I do that while you’re on the other side…”

“Then there’s no telling when I might be able to return,” Sam realised. “Why didn’t you just take me away in the first place? We could have gone together, left the circle, we didn’t have to come back so soon.”

D’ean lowered his head and nudged Sam gently just below his shoulder, snuffing softly. “Because they knew you were here, and that I’d have to bring you back, eventually. Because I had to give you that choice. Because… you might not have wanted to stay.”

Sam raised his other arm and laid his hand along the side of D’ean’s snout, stroking the leathery scales. “Well, I do want to stay,” he said, very quietly. “It makes it a little more difficult, if I can’t just go back to pick up supplies, but we can manage. It’s not too cold at night, especially if I can sleep next to you for warmth; and I can make more arrows to hunt for food, they won’t have iron tips but I’ll need to save those for dealing with any more wights. I’d like to explore this world more, with you, if you’ll have me; and besides, I still haven’t done what I came here for.”

“Your mother?” D’ean asked. He was rubbing his head very carefully against Sam’s hand, his eyes closed with every appearance of enjoyment.

“Yes, she…” Sam paused as it struck him suddenly. D’ean said that time moved differently here, that it moved faster. Given how much time had passed in his world since she went away, how long had it been for her, here? Was she an old woman now; was she even alive?

He realised that his hand had stilled as D’ean nudged at him, but he couldn’t move; he was overcome with the terrifying thought that he might have lost her all over again. Surely the visions couldn’t be that cruel, to give him unfounded hope...? He frowned, as the nudging became more insistent, turned to snap at D’ean and push him away, but found himself staring directly into one of the dragon’s eyes. It was glowing, green as new leaves bathed in morning sunlight, and this close he could look right into the iris and see it swirling gently like oil poured into a pot of simmering water. The dark, slit pupil opened like a fissure and he could imagine the green flowing away, down and within, an endless cataract that swept him with it, carrying off all his fears and cares until he felt that he was floating, his mind at peace, on the jade waters of an underground lake…

The eye blinked closed and Sam came to himself again with an almost physical jolt. “We will search for your mother,” D’ean rumbled comfortingly inside his mind. “If she came here, then a dragon must have been involved; so we’ll ask among the dragons, until we find news of her. But until then, there is no point in worrying. I can’t fly far by night and you need to rest. We can consider the problem again in the morning.”

Sam realised that he was, in fact, exhausted; the excitement of the day had kept him alert, but he had slept (and eaten) very little while waiting for D’ean to come to him, and now that the battle mood was wearing off, he was tired and sore and hungry. Strangely, after the half trance of falling into D’ean’s gaze, his physical discomfort didn’t affect his emotions. He felt calm and almost numb, as though the imagined water had cleansed the tumult of his feelings, and all he really wanted to do now was sleep.

“Soon,” the dragon rumbled softly in his mind. “Soon you can rest your lazy bones, but not here. Ride with me just a little way to where we can lie up safely for the night before you pass out altogether.”

Sam smiled to himself. He didn’t feel resentment at the jibe; he had quickly begun to realise that the dragon’s teasing was just that, affectionate banter and not meant to hurt his feelings. If anything, it was a cover for D’ean’s own feelings; Sam could feel the dragon’s emotions running underneath his words like a hidden stream. Sometimes the stronger ones pushed to the surface, clear for him to read, and despite their short acquaintance, he was getting good at it. He knew that D’ean was worried about him, and was trying to hide it, both from Sam and from himself. Well, Sam could take a little good natured ribbing; he might even give back as good as he got, once his head cleared enough to think up a good comeback or two.

Once more he clambered up onto D’ean’s shoulders, this time accepting the assistance of a nose without complaint. His side throbbed and the tiredness seemed to seep into his bones so that he could barely cling to his perch. He lay doubled over, his cheek and chest pressed against the dragon’s rugged hide, and wrapped his arms tightly around the outstretched neck. He barely registered their short flight beyond the brief discomfort of take-off, and when D’ean nosed at him to get down, he slid off with a bump that made him hiss as his side flared with pain. He sat down, leaning against the dragon’s flank, while D’ean fussed over his wounds. Too tired even to eat, although his stomach was cramping, he fell asleep to the soothing laps of his new friend’s tongue and solid warmth at his back.


	6. Chapter 6

When he woke, Sam felt a lot better. His side was still sore when he stretched, but the torn flesh seemed to be knitting together without any of the problems D’ean had warned him about. For a brief, panicked moment he thought he was alone; looking around, he soon spotted the dragon, who was crouching not very far away. He seemed to be eating something, worrying at a carcase with a lot of bone cracking and (to Sam’s mind) unnecessary noise; growling, champing and slurping. A less than happy image flashed into Sam’s mind of the unicorn herd they had flown over the previous day. He got to his feet and went over to the dragon, looking about him to see where they had spent the night, but there was nothing special about their surroundings. Nothing but rolling grasslands as far as he could see, not even the stones of the Eye of the Dragon rose against the horizon. It was a clear, spring morning, already quite advanced by the sun’s height; a fresh wind was blowing, but the sun was warm on his skin and the day was full of promise.

Sam tried not to look at D’ean’s kill as he approached, not wanting to see such a majestic creature reduced to ripped flesh and bones. “Enjoying your breakfast?” he asked by way of greeting, somewhat sardonically. 

D’ean was a messy eater, his whole head spattered with gore. He eyed Sam a little warily and growled softly, reflexively warning him away from his meal. Then he seemed to think better of it and shook himself, before extending his neck to snort his own greeting, a huff of warm, meaty air against the skin of Sam’s chest.

“Up at last, sleepyhead?” D’ean’s voice rumbled in Sam’s mind. “This is closer to lunch than breakfast. A dragon could starve, waiting for you to be up and about.”

“I notice you didn’t waste any time hunting,” Sam answered dryly. “Good thing nothing hunted me while you were off chasing unicorns.”

“Oh, you were perfectly safe,” D’ean responded dismissively. “The Shade can only navigate by the circles, so way out here in the middle of nowhere, they haven’t a hope of finding us; and much more of a chance finding me than a lost little lamb like you.”

“How did you find me?” Sam asked. There wasn’t a landmark around that he could identify, and navigating by the sun was only any good for general directions, not pinpointing a specific location. D’ean surely couldn’t have taken a chance, but he couldn’t imagine how the dragon had roamed far enough to find prey and still made his way unerringly back to the spot where he’d left Sam sleeping.

“Worried I’d leave you all alone?” There was a pronounced smirk to the tone of D’ean’s words. “I’m a better navigator than that.”

He turned back to his meal and tore off a limb with a rending crack. He tossed his head, throwing the leg up into the air, then caught it and turned to Sam, a bloody hoof dangling from the side of his jaws.

“You sure you don’t want any?” he asked. “You still haven’t eaten anything, and I don’t need you fainting off my back in midair.”

Sam felt his gorge rise and turned away with a grimace. “I’m alright, thanks,” he said. It was good that D’ean was willing to share with him, he supposed; it was just a pity about what he had to offer. “I still have a bit of trail bread left; I’ll just go eat it… over there.”

“Suit yourself,” D’ean mentally shrugged. “There’s a stream back that way, if you’re thirsty.”

Sam wandered away until he found the stream and dunked his whole head into the clear, cold water. He flung back his hair, shaking diamond droplets all around, then secured it in a knot with the leather tie that held it out of his face. Then he hunkered down on a tussock of grass to finish the last of the bread Misoori had given him. If he wasn’t to starve, and he certainly wasn’t going to start eating unicorn, then he’d need to hunt. There wasn’t much out here on the open plain, but D’ean could take him to the forest border he had spotted yesterday; he was bound to rustle up a deer. 

He wondered why he was perfectly happy to eat a deer but not a unicorn; they were both herd beasts, hoofed grass eaters that would make tasty eating. He wouldn’t eat a horse either, he decided; that was the main difference. Unicorns were similar to horses, and men tamed those for riding, not for eating. Then there were the legends; he wanted to ask D’ean if any of them were true, but somehow knowing would make it even harder to stomach the idea that to the dragon, they were nothing more than prey. He wondered if it was possible to tame a unicorn. Then he wondered whether D’ean would be able to send a unicorn across into his own world. That would be something to take back to his tribe! But that was a plan to save for the future; he had a mission here, he was on a vision quest and had no intention of leaving until he found answers. 

Besides that, he wasn’t ready to leave D’ean yet. They had only just met, and he felt a powerful attraction to the great beast, even if he did hunt unicorns. They got along so easily, as though they had known one another for years instead of barely one day and night, and he found the way D’ean could read his thoughts far less intrusive than he would have supposed. It was comforting, in a way, and quite liberating, not to have to explain himself all the time, to weigh how best to phrase things, or worry about hiding his emotions. D’ean just knew, and beyond that, he didn’t judge. Yes, he teased Sam, almost without letting up; he especially enjoyed pointing out the differences between their physical size and prowess; but not once had he sounded disappointed or pulled Sam up on his innermost feelings, the things that would have embarrassed him most before another human. He wasn’t sure if this was out of consideration or because D’ean genuinely wasn’t concerned with such things; he was a dragon, after all, and his mind probably worked quite differently; but either way, in less than a day, Sam had become quite comfortable with their mental exchanges and knew that he could rely on D’ean implicitly to have his back, both in a fight or when he was ailing. It was a warming, humbling thought; he might be the son of a chieftain, but the tribes never stood on ceremony with that sort of thing - a man had to prove his own worth - and really, what was Sam but a man, a human, small and mortal and fragile next to the lord of beasts? He would have been gratified just for D’ean to take notice of him; would never in his wildest dreams have believed that he would befriend him, in so short a time. What did he have to bring to the relationship, after all, beyond drawing D’ean into danger and criticising him for his dietary choices? Sam felt a sudden, hot curl of shame; he wasn’t proving the noblest of companions, or the most capable; their first fight, and he’d managed to get himself injured. Some chieftain’s son he was turning out to be!

At that moment, D’ean let out a long, rumbling snort and Sam looked up, to see the dragon looking back at him with a gleaming, and knowing, eye. D’ean heaved himself to his feet and padded over to the stream, lowering his gory head into the water and shaking it to clean away the blood. He stood so close to Sam, his elbow nudged against his side, his sheer size and solidity almost pushing Sam over, but it felt close and companionable rather than intimidating. Then D’ean raised his head and shook it again, drenching Sam in a shower of spray and making him leap up to scramble out of the way, laughing in a half hearted protest.

“If you’re done feeling sorry for yourself,” D’ean remarked lightly, “we can think about moving on.”

“Sorry,” Sam replied. “I just… I don’t really understand. I mean, it’s not just me, really. Humans and dragons; it’s obvious what we get out of the exchange, but… why do you do it? Why bring us over, why even talk to us? I’m not asking for personal validation here, I’m genuinely puzzled about what's in it for you.” He sat back down on the handy tussock and stared up at D’ean, his hands clasped loosely and dangling between his thighs.

D’ean regarded him for a moment, his head tilted on one side; then he snorted and pushed his nose against Sam’s chest. A feeling washed over Sam, that ever-present amusement, and affection, but there was more than that; he felt a deep longing, a loneliness, like an ache in the pit of the dragon’s soul. He reached up without thinking about it and stroked the great nose as D’ean whuffled softly against his skin, warm, moist breath with the fragrance of autumn mists.

“We like you,” he said simply, a soft rumble in Sam’s head. “Things are more interesting with you around. We live a long time, and there isn’t really a lot to do besides hunting. I… it’s been a long, a very long time since… my first.”

A wave of sadness, of loss, came across with that thought. Sam reached higher and scratched gently with his fingertips at the soft skin under the dragon’s eye. “Who was it; what was their name?” he asked, softly.

“She was called Lisl,” D’ean sighed, and with the name an image swam into Sam’s mind; a vivacious young woman with long, dark hair, eyes that snapped with life, and a flashing smile.

“She’s beautiful,” Sam said appreciatively. He had more of an eye for men, himself, but he could recognise and enjoy the finer points of the opposite sex, just as he could admire a fine horse, or a dragon, or a lovely view.

“She was,” D’ean agreed quietly. “She and I were… she was more than a friend.” A closeness, an intimation of bonding, rolled over Sam.

“What happened to her?” he asked.

“She died,” came the answer, devastatingly simple, and Sam’s heart contracted for the dragon. “You humans… you live such short lives, but you burn so brightly, like falling stars. Maybe that’s why; you have to fit everything into such a short span. We dragons, we endure; we go on after you fade, and we keep the memories alive, but… it can be a lonely existence.”

“What about other dragons?” Sam asked. “Don’t you form… attachments with your own kind?”

“We do,” D’ean admitted, “but they aren’t as strong. We’re independent, and pretty territorial; we need a lot of space for hunting, and the herds don’t support too many feeding on them at a time. We live apart, and meet seldom, and… well, there’s no rush. We know we’re always around, if needed. It just isn’t the same.”

Sam felt that they were skirting around something, some huge truth that hovered at the back of his mind like a great, winged creature; like a dragon! - but somehow just out of sight, as though he was a little afraid to turn around and try to reach it. He continued to pet D’ean’s scaly cheek and the dragon nuzzled up to him, pressing gently against him, clearly enjoying the contact.

“So,” Sam said, feeling his way carefully around that half-perceived notion, “how do you find… a human? Do you take turns, and whoever is… on portal duty, that dragon wins whichever human happens to show up?”

D’ean laughed, both mentally and physically, shoving Sam’s chest in playful remonstration. “It’s nothing like as simple as that,” he answered. “Friendship - intimacy - they don’t work on a first come, first served basis. We get… an inkling… when someone comes to one of the portals, the dragon who is most suited is usually the first to turn up; but it doesn’t always mean a fast connection will be made. And most of my kind… we have different skills, and while all dragons can communicate across the circle, not many can do what I did, and bring their chosen human across.”

Sam stared, his hand stilling against D’ean’s cheek. Did that mean… if not many dragons could power the portal, then… “Was it you who helped my mother?” he breathed.

“No, before you came, I hadn’t opened the portal since Lisl,” D’ean crushed the faint flicker of hope that had burst up in Sam’s heart, then nosed at him in sympathy. “I’m not the only one who can power the portal, but we are somewhat rare. Dragons have… an affinity, I suppose you could call it… with the elements. Most align with fire, or air; there are water dragons, and the ice dragons of the far north, and the storm dragons who can weave the lightning.”

He paused, nudging insistently until Sam chuckled and resumed scratching, moving his hand around D’ean’s eye and even over the closed eyelid, until he voiced his appreciation in a great, rumbling purr.

“So what element do you align with?” Sam asked, certain that he knew. The great, crystalline spines on D’ean’s back; that scent on his breath; the way he could power up a portal between worlds, a stone circle buried deep in the earth. It all made sense.

“Yes, I’m an earth dragon,” D’ean replied. “It’s why my breath has such a great effect on the wights, because they’re earth magic too, summoned up from bones lying in the ground. They aren’t the biggest threat the Shade could have sent against me, but they are numerous and quick to deploy. If you hadn’t fought so well alongside me, they might have overwhelmed me. One wight, jumping onto my back the way that one did to you, could have torn my wing and stopped me from flying.”

Sam considered that, a chill running through him at the thought of what could have happened next, with D’ean hobbled and unable to go far from the circle where he said the Shade could track him.

“So why do the Shade want you so badly?” he wondered. What could cause this bitter enmity with dragons who, from what D’ean had told him so far, kept to themselves and largely minded their own business?

“They don’t want dragons, not specifically,” D’ean answered. “They want access to the portals. It’s your world they want; they can’t cross over, not by themselves, and so they need dragons. Earth dragons, like me, who can hold the portal open so they can slip through. They seek to capture us, and… I don’t know. I suppose they’d torture me, until I gave in and did what they wanted. I don’t plan on finding out, if I can help it.” 

The way he said it, so calm and matter of fact, made it even harder for Sam to bear. “But you only came to the portal because of me!” he cried, his stomach twisting. “If you just left us alone… stayed away… they wouldn’t be able to set these traps; you’d be safe! We can’t be worth the risk, surely…” He should go back, he should leave this world and warn everyone, tell the tribes to stay away from the Dragon’s Eyes in future. He wasn’t thinking of the risk to his own world, of the Shade trying to gain a foothold there; he was worried solely for D’ean, about what they would do to him if they caught him.

D’ean nudged him again, purring. “Foolish little one,” he said softly, and a wave of pure affection - love? - rolled over Sam, swamping the horror and guilt and calming the sudden hammering of his heart. “I’ve waited a long time to meet you, and if you think I’m going to send you away now, just because of some greedy shadows… well, just don’t. We need to be careful, that’s all. And most of the time, as long as we aren’t near the circles, or the ley lines that feed them, we’ll be perfectly safe.”

Sam thought for a moment, frowning. “D’ean…” he said, an unwelcome idea taking form. “My mother… I saw the Shade take hold of her, on my side of the circle. Does that mean they broke through already?”

“It seems likely,” D’ean admitted. “If she was communicating with someone - with a dragon, I mean - there would have been enough overlap between the worlds for at least a couple of Shade to slip through. Then if they held her, they would have leverage over the dragon. The only way to save her would be to bring her, and the Shade, back across, but the flames you saw… That suggests a fire type, and they don’t have the same control over the portal as I do. I don’t know how they would have pulled your mother over, unless they were working in tandem with another earth dragon? I’m sorry, Sam. I really don’t know what happened to your mother, or where she is now, but I can take you to someone who might.”

“Who is that?” Sam asked, curious to meet another dragon and wondering if it would be another earth type, like D’ean, or something different.

“I'll take you to see my mother,” D’ean answered. “She’s a fire type herself, so she’ll have a better idea of what you saw in your vision, what those flames could mean. And who knows, maybe she is the dragon your mother was talking to; my father is an earth dragon, like me, so it’s very possible the two of them were together at the circle, and combined their skills to save her and take out the Shade. We can ask him, too, but he’s further away, so we’ll see her first. I haven’t been to visit in a long while,” he went on, “and she’ll be pleased to know I - well, she’ll be pleased to meet you.”


	7. Chapter 7

D’ean insisted on checking Sam’s side before they set off again, and was pleased to find how quickly the wound was healing. He gave it a good licking anyway, just to be sure, and Sam only made a token protest, because really he quite enjoyed the attention. He clambered up onto D’ean’s back much more easily this time, his long sleep having done him the power of good. Once aloft, he took a last look around and his gaze was caught by something gleaming in the grass; long and white, it stood out starkly against the gory remains of D’ean’s breakfast-lunch. The unicorn’s horn. The tales told interesting things about the power of that horn. It might come in useful, and he didn’t quite like to leave it lying there, forlorn and forgotten for years after the rest of its bearer had disintegrated. He asked D’ean to wait a moment and slid back down, to an eye-roll that was felt rather than seen, and picked up the horn. 

It was a good length and heft, like a short spear, handy for stabbing or throwing, and it was an amazingly delicate thing for its deadly point. Its spiraling curves glimmered faintly in the sunlight like the pearly interior of a shell, its whiteness offset by just the faintest tinge of pink. The only thing marring its beauty was the ragged flap of bloody skin around the base where it had torn loose from the skull, now resting a little way off and glaring accusingly at Sam. He hunched a shoulder and directed a silent apology to the creature’s spirit, wishing it good grazing on the endless plains of the afterlife. Then he took his knife to the end of the horn and scraped at the fleshy material until it was clean. Satisfied, he wiped the blade on the grass and tucked the horn away into the quiver which hung at his back. He could feel D’ean’s eyes on him the whole time, along with a sensation of barely restrained exasperation, softened with the fond amusement that seemed to colour all his emotions where Sam was concerned.

Finally, Sam was ready, and climbed back onto his dragon, ignoring the very pointed way he wasn’t saying anything.

“I need weapons,” he said patiently, once he was settled in place. “And if these are good at sticking dragons, they should be good for anything the Shade can send our way!”

D’ean snorted, but seemed to concede his point. And within the next few minutes they were airborne again, any lingering bone of contention forgotten in the exhilaration of flight and the majesty of the landscape as it unrolled beneath them, verdant beneath the midday sun.

They headed towards the mountains again, but D’ean explained that they wouldn’t reach their destination in one day and they would be forced to lay over again for the night, since he wasn’t about to fly blind in the darkness. Also, they weren’t taking the most direct route; he was avoiding the ley lines, those invisible lines of earth energy which Sam couldn’t sense, but D’ean - and the Shade - could. As the day wore on, Sam’s stomach started to cramp with hunger too, and that was an issue they would have to address.

“Should have shared the unicorn,” D’ean grumbled, “instead of leaving bits of it to rot. How’s that supposed to do any good for the creature, anyway? It’s already dead. But instead of filling your belly, you pick up the one part that’s no good to anybody.” He clearly felt that humans were illogical and over emotive. He didn’t actually voice it aloud but Sam was becoming almost as adept at reading the dragon as D’ean was him, and he could tell.

“Even if I did eat it, I’m not a dragon; I can’t live on meat alone,” Sam pointed out. “Other humans who come here, what do they eat? How did you feed Lisl?”

“Dragonfruit,” D’ean answered, a little too succinctly. 

Sam looked suspiciously at the back of his head. “What… exactly is that?” he asked. He’d never heard of such a thing and was afraid it might be some sort of euphemism.

D’ean was looking straight ahead as he flew, so Sam was treated to another felt rather than seen roll of his eyes. “It’s a kind of fruit,” the dragon explained with exaggerated patience. “It grows in the mountains, around dragon lairs. It’s very nutritious and I’m told it’s also very tasty, if you like that sort of thing, which obviously I don’t. It also grows for most of the year, and keeps well when dried, so it can be stored for winter use. Don’t worry,” he added cheerfully, “I wasn’t planning on starving you, even if you are a picky eater. There are all kinds of wild roots and herbs, too, and rock rabbits you can snare. Nuts, too, and other fruits, in the autumn. But you can get by on just rabbit and dragonfruit, if needed.”

“You seem to know a lot about it,” Sam chuckled.

“Lisl told me,” D’ean admitted, sounding wistful. “She used to gather all kinds of things and she was an inventive cook. She made stews, and salads, and jams…”

“Sounds like she was well equipped,” Sam remarked, thinking about how he had come through the stone circle with nothing but his weapons. He might have to have words with Misoori when; if; he returned.

“Different times,” D’ean said. “The Shade have been more active of late; time was, it was less risky hanging around the portal, and if you stay inside, the worlds… synchronise, somehow. Don’t ask me how it works, I only open the gates, I didn’t make them.”

“Who did make them?” Sam asked, intrigued.

“You did,” the dragon answered. “Humans built them, in your world, in places where the concentration of earth energy attracted dragons. We can communicate without them, at a suitable power nexus; but the stones concentrate the energy to make a portal.”

Sam put two and two together, then, because he was good at making connections. “Is that when the Shade started to become a threat?” he asked.

There was a short pause, before D’ean gruffly responded, “Yes.”

So it really was all the fault of humans. Shade had never bothered the dragons, until they discovered a whole new world, and the humans built the stone portals in order to visit their dragon friends. Then the Shade wanted to cross over, and…

“What do they want with our world?” he asked. “It doesn’t seem very different from yours; except for having us in it.”

“I don’t know,” D’ean answered. “And honestly, I don’t care. What I do know is that they’re evil; wrong, and tainted. They bring death and destruction to everything they touch; you saw the wights they created. You felt them. The Shade aren’t really a problem most of the time, they hide away in the shadows and keep to themselves, but they’re attracted to the portals like flies to shit, and they’re cunning. They want your world, and all that concerns me is that they’re not going to get it. Not through me, at any rate.”

He stopped talking then and wouldn’t answer any more of Sam’s questions, so he eventually gave up and spent his time admiring the view, wondering what D’ean’s parents were like, and how he was going to fend for himself in this world. The Tribes of the Dragon lived on the fringes of civilisation, outcast from their fellow men because of their strange abilities and their connection with dragons; but even their society seemed the height of cultural achievement beside this wild, untouched world. Still, if Lisl had managed - and hopefully his own mother - Sam was a hunter, and the son of a tribal chieftain; he knew a lot of survival skills.

Quite some time before evening, D’ean brought them down on the edge of a patch of woodland. At their approach, several deer which had been grazing along the border took fright, leaping away into the trees with a flash of white rumps. When Sam had dismounted, D’ean butted him in the chest, hard enough to make him stagger.

“You need to eat,” he said in a tone that brooked no argument. “And until we can find dragonfruit, that means hunting. And since you won’t eat unicorn, that means deer, which means here. So get off your ass and go hunt.”

D’ean lay down in the grass, folding his legs under him and resting his chin on the ground. He yawned deeply, closed his eyes and gave every impression of settling to sleep.

“It’s not that easy,” Sam warned. “I might be a while. And I can’t hunt when it’s dark, any more than you can.” He wasn’t protesting; he did need to eat, and he had refused what D’ean had offered. He was just pointing out practicalities. He hoped he wouldn’t get lost in the forest; that would be embarrassing, at the very least.

D’ean made a humming sort of sound. “They won’t stray too deep into the woods; they stay on the edges for the grazing. Of course they won’t come out while I’m here, but maybe you could chase one into my waiting jaws. Just don’t go too far and you’ll be fine.”

Sam sighed, and decided to just get on with it. Maybe he would be lucky, and if not, he could make his way back to the forest’s edge and track along it until he found D’ean again. He set off into the woods, walking as quietly as he could and scanning for signs of sudden, startled passage, of nibbled bark and foliage. He tried to keep in mind the relative whereabouts of the forest border and D’ean, glancing up through the trees to keep an eye on the sun. Clouds had been rolling in all afternoon, which made it difficult; it looked as though the night was set for rain, which was just what he needed, out here in the open, exposed to the elements. D’ean might shrug off a rainstorm with his thick, scaly hide; Sam was not looking forward to it. It was already cool within the shade of the trees, although walking kept him warm enough. Fortunately, he was used to going without shoes; he tended only to wear hide boots in the winter. Otherwise the rough ground of the woodland, with its roots and sticks and creeping briars, would have been too arduous. He ignored the occasional digs into the tender flesh of his instep, focused on settling the more insistent stabbing of his belly.

Despite his fears, it proved relatively easy to find the deer. Maybe they just weren’t used to being hunted by humans in this world, and judged Sam to be a lesser threat than either dragon or wolf. A small herd of them were hanging out in a lighter patch of forest, not quite a clearing. Several were lying down, but a few stood watch, their heads held high and alert. Sam ignored them, aiming for smaller, less wary prey. A young doe, wandering away from the group in search of juicy young leaf shoots, came within range, seeming oblivious to his presence. As carefully and quietly as he could, Sam drew his bow on the deer and concentrated. He aimed at the slender throat as she bent her head, nibbling on the bushes. Whether he made some slight noise, or the wind changed, or the doe just sensed danger with that sixth sense of being hunted that all wary creatures share, she suddenly raised her head as Sam let loose his arrow, and turned to bolt.

It wasn’t entirely a disaster; the arrow struck, but rather than taking her in the neck as he had planned, it hit the shoulder, where it hurt but did not kill outright. The deer leapt away but stumbled on her injured side; Sam, cursing under his breath, sprang after her and winced as his own side throbbed from the mending gashes. The other deer scattered, exploding in all directions out of the semi-clearing. This actually helped him to pinpoint his doe, because she was running lame, unable to keep up with the herd, and he managed to cut her off and drive her back in the opposite direction, towards the edge of the forest. It was a frantic, lumbering chase, the deer flagging from her injury and Sam doing his best to keep up, his wound searing like a brand across his side. He couldn’t let her get away; eventually she would falter to a stop and he could put her out of her misery, but he knew that could take some time, as the fear and survival instinct kept her going. If he had been hunting back home, he would have gone with other members of his tribe, and they could have circled the deer, trapping them. Now, he could only hope that he caught up before his own stamina gave out, or that D’ean was waiting somewhere nearby, more awake than he had let on.

“If you’re there,” he thought deliberately, picturing the dragon in his mind, “I could use a hand - or a claw. If she breaks from the trees, can you catch her?”

He wasn’t sure where he was any more. He knew in which direction the forest ended and was able to feint and drive the deer that way, but he had no idea where she would break out and how far it would be from the waiting dragon. If he was even waiting. He might be fast asleep, or watching the entire situation while laughing. Sam would probably laugh himself, if he wasn’t so hungry and (by now) worn out.

The deer made another desperate attempt to zig zag away from Sam, curved off just to his left and ahead of him, and disappeared through low hanging greenery. There was a sudden commotion, a sharp bleat of terror, and silence. Sam padded cautiously forward and peeked out from behind a tree trunk. There was D’ean, silhouetted against the sky, his head raised as he looked directly towards Sam - and there was the doe, slumped beneath his great clawed forefoot.

“That was fun!” he said, and Sam could tell he meant it; the excitement and pleasure in his tone were evident. Along with something else. He seemed pleased with - proud of? - Sam himself, as though he’d just proved himself somehow, even though he hadn’t brought the deer down straight away and had then exhausted himself on a futile scramble, ultimately not even taking down his own kill.

“Not futile,” D’ean insisted. “You drove it to me, and I killed it. We made a good team. Again.” He cocked his head, looking down at the deer. “Uh, Sammy… you going to eat all of this?”

“Well, no, but - hey! Greedy guts! At least wait until I get my share! You already ate most of a unicorn today, how much do you even need?” Sam jogged out from between the trees and loped his way over to D’ean, one hand pressed to his aching side.

“Carrying extra weight,” D’ean replied smugly, “so I need more energy. Also dealing with that.” His head shot forward as Sam approached and came within a hair’s breadth of butting him in the stomach. Sam stumbled to a halt and tensed, but D’ean just whuffled at him gently, a curl of white rising like steam from his nostrils to lap against Sam’s skin.

“That bothering you?” D’ean asked.

“It’s fine,” Sam lied. “It’s healing well, I just pulled the scar running after the deer.”

“Well, I don’t want to take any chances with it,” the dragon responded firmly. “We’re not going any further tonight anyhow; we’ll rest here, you can eat and I’ll see to your wounds.”

“I’m not eating anything until I can get a fire going,” Sam sighed, looking back over to the eaves of the wood. At least it wouldn’t be hard to find fuel; but he was starting to feel stiff and sore and really looking forward to not moving any more.

“Just a moment then,” D’ean rumbled, and took a breath, releasing a wave of healing vapour around Sam with a hissing sigh. “I’ll clean it again after you’ve eaten,” he said, “but that should help for now.”

It did; as he inhaled the dragon’s breath, he felt revived, and the throbbing in his side lessened, at least enough for him to go and forage for an armload of firewood. D’ean looked on with interest while he kindled a small fire, hacked off a haunch from the deer and set about roasting it. When it was done, D’ean watched him eat with all the hopeful concentration of a hungry dog. At least he didn’t salivate.

“Here, want to try some?” Sam held out a morsel of cooked flesh, which the dragon took delicately from between his fingers with his long and agile tongue. He dropped it immediately, and much less delicately, with an explosive snort.

“That tastes like ass,” he complained, then went on in an indignant tone, “Why must you ruin a perfectly good piece of fresh meat?”

“Human digestion is different from dragons’,” Sam told him calmly. “We have to cook our food. There’s plenty left for you, if you’re really hungry.” He suspected the dragon just wanted to steal, because he was eating; the way an annoying sibling might help themselves to the choicest tidbits from the side of a platter.

“I’ll save it for breakfast,” D’ean decided. “Are you done yet?”

Sam banked the fire and went to lean against the dragon’s flank as he had the previous evening. D’ean radiated a gentle warmth that was like leaning against a sun-warmed rock, only this rock wouldn’t go cold during the night. The great head curved around on its flexible neck and he nuzzled Sam’s side, gently probing his wound. Sam’s exhaustion caught up with him finally and, with a full belly at last, he fell asleep to the comforting rhythm of D’ean’s tongue lapping gently over his ribs.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the chapter in which Sam and Dean get together finally - and the reason for the 'mature' rating of this story. If you want to skip the actual sex scene, you can continue reading partway so as not to lose too much plot, but “So,” he said, gathering his courage, “you going to stand there all night or do you want to come over and sit by me while we - talk?” is probably the point at which you should stop and move on to chapter nine ;)

Sam dreamed of his mother again; the storm, the stone circle and the flames. This time it seemed less clear, more like a memory or a real dream than standing witness to something that was actually happening. When he ran towards Maire, he couldn’t feel the ground beneath his feet and it was as though he couldn’t get any purchase on the rain slick grass; no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t seem to draw closer to the henge. Yet, when she put out her hands towards him, suddenly wreathed in flames, he was right beside her without having moved. Just as in his vision though, all Sam could do was watch helplessly as her voice seemed to echo through the rumbling of the storm, “Remember me, my love!”

As before, he fell to his knees inside the circle, staring blindly at the charred patch of ground where she had been standing. He felt detached, emotionally cut off from the scene, though he remembered that he had grieved the first time he dreamed. He wondered how long it would take him to wake up. He glanced up at the sky, an instinctive reaction to check the stars, and frowned; the storm was over and the night should have been clear, but the circle around him was blotted out with a thick, rising mist that soon closed overhead like an upturned bowl, sealing him in. He couldn’t see the stones, although shrouded in fog, at night, he shouldn’t be able to see anything; but there was light, a faint glow as though the mist was infused with moonlight. It was very quiet, though somewhere in the distance it seemed he could hear water, like the gentle pattering of rain on the stretched hides of a roof. 

And with this thought, suddenly he was inside his yurt, kneeling on his pallet of furs instead of on wet grass, and the sound of the rain was louder, drumming insistently overhead. Well, that was typical of dreams, he thought, still with that strange detachment. He waited, mildly curious to see what would happen next. He also wondered if his entire adventure had been a dream, if he had in fact passed out, and been carried back to his yurt and put to bed in a fever, and was only now waking for the first time in days. He looked down to check his side; there was a faint, reddish scar, a set of parallel lines cross-hatching his ribs like war paint, almost fully healed. How had he received those marks, if it had all been just a dream...? Could things in a true dream, a vision quest, cause actual bodily harm? He pressed his fingers to the scar and felt a faint ache, and the sense memory of a warm, wet tongue wrapping around his side. He felt a pang of loss then, stabbing keener than his grief and horror at seeing his mother disappear in a tower of flames. He wanted to go back to sleep, never to rise again, if waking meant that he wouldn’t see D’ean. Had he, had any of it, been real...?

Gradually, he became aware of another sound, mingling softly with the gentle tattoo of raindrops. A whispered rasping on the walls of the yurt, as though something encircled the structure, rubbing against it; the soft susurration of scales. He sat still, listening intently, and the noise coalesced in one place, a patient, persistent scratching against the hide curtain covering the entrance.

“Is someone there?” Sam whispered, his throat constricting with hope. Then he said, a little louder, not quite a plea: “You can come in?” Well… if it was D’ean, his head might fit, at least.

Silence. Then the curtain twitched, and a hand - a human hand - slid around the edge of the flap before pushing it aside. A man ducked through the gap then let the hide fall back into place as he straightened, staring at Sam. He was tall, though not as tall as Sam, lean and muscular and broad shouldered; and quite the most strikingly handsome man he had ever seen. His raw, virile beauty stole Sam’s breath and left his mouth so dry he had difficulty swallowing. As the man just stood there, looking back at him, Sam couldn’t keep his eyes from roaming all over. His naked length curved proudly, half hard and gloriously thick between his thighs. Other features he took in as he drank his fill were a distinct bow to the legs, short, dark blond hair, lips deliciously curved and plump, ripe for kissing; and the eyes. Those eyes captured Sam’s gaze even from across the yurt. They were green as new grass, luminous as beryls in the flickering half-light of the banked fire, and he could almost imagine himself falling into them, drowning - no, not drowning, but swimming down into their depths like… like he had done before...?

“D’ean...?” Sam gasped, and the man smiled, a delighted grin spreading across his face like the sun shining out from between the clouds. His teeth were very white, and very even. “Hey, short stuff,” he said and that sealed the matter for Sam. It was D’ean’s voice, exactly the same gravelly rumble, though several octaves higher and coming to his ears instead of directly into his head; and hearing it like this, from the exquisite lips of this magnificent, human form, resonated in a most peculiar way in Sam’s belly.

“It is you!” he croaked, swallowing to find his voice. “How did… how is this possible? Are you real? Am I dreaming?”

“In a manner of speaking,” the man - D’ean - replied. He leaned back against the wall of the yurt and crossed his arms loosely over his chest. “It’s a little like the vision dreams, because it’s real; I’m here, in your head, talking to you right now. But it’s also like a real dream, because I can only do it when you’re asleep.”

“You didn’t do it last night?” Sam’s tone was a query, yearning to understand.

D’ean shrugged a shoulder and his gaze flicked away from Sam’s. He looked down, suddenly seeming shy. “I don’t know,” he said, “you needed to sleep, you were exhausted, and… I didn’t want… I mean, it’s a lot to take in, I understand that. This.” He gestured down at himself, his hands sweeping to encompass his whole body, then he refolded his arms in a manner Sam recognised now as defensive.

“It is,” Sam agreed, laughing a little from sheer incredulity. “The stories never said anything about… But I like it,” he added quickly, as D’ean’s shoulders hunched. “I wouldn’t have… how do you do it? Is it a conscious effort, or - or is it just how I’m seeing you?” How he’d like to see him, he didn’t quite want to say aloud. He knew he admired the dragon, had grown swiftly and unexpectedly close, but imagining him inhabiting the kind of body he normally (and ironically) only ever dreamed about; was that going a little too far?

“It’s just me,” D’ean said quietly, as though he had no idea how he was affecting Sam; and maybe he didn’t. After all, he wasn’t human, even if he looked the part right now. “We all have a - a human shape, for… well. For this, I suppose.” He looked back into Sam’s eyes and grinned, but Sam, now that he had got over the surprise of the dragon becoming a man, found that he could read him just as well in either form, and he could tell that D’ean was apprehensive. It was almost as though he was afraid that Sam wouldn’t approve of the change. Knowing that this guise was true to D’ean shored up Sam’s confidence however; it was simply coincidence, a lucky chance, that he found him so attractive, and really not so surprising, that such a handsome dragon should make a handsome man.

“So,” he said, gathering his courage, “you going to stand there all night or do you want to come over and sit by me while we - talk?” A surge of arousal made his words hitch, as the thought sprang up, unbidden, of what they could do instead of talking… Hopefully, D’ean hadn’t noticed, or didn’t understand if he had.

D’ean was grinning again, his own self confidence flowing back around him like a cloak, and he reached the bed in three quick strides and settled himself beside Sam, leaning forward a little into his personal space. He was still staring, his eyes trained on Sam’s as though mesmerised, and the strange little smile on his lips looked as hopeful as Sam felt.

This close, Sam could devour every little detail of D’ean’s new, human face with his gaze. He found himself glancing back and forth between those incredible eyes, framed with a tawny sweep of lashes that seemed to flutter an invitation each time they blinked, and the luscious pout of a mouth that just demanded to be kissed. The moment stretched; he was staring and couldn’t think of a thing to say or do that wouldn’t seem too forward, or downright inappropriate. He started to panic a little, inwardly kicking himself. He was being weird, and D’ean was going to tease him for it, if he wasn’t put off altogether - if he even felt the same way as Sam to begin with! This could be the starting point of a massive misunderstanding, and he felt as though he was standing on the edge of a precipice, wanting to jump but not certain whether he could fly. His next step could be as amazing as his wildest dreams or more awful than his worst nightmare. He swallowed, his throat constricting; he couldn’t make the choice…

“Hey.” D’ean put his hand on Sam’s arm, his touch firm but gentle. “If it helps, I’ll always be there to catch you if you fall.”

Sam almost squeaked. Great, so his thoughts weren’t private even in dreams?

D’ean’s mouth twitched in a smile that was amused, but not mocking. “Sorry,” he said softly. “You just think so loudly. And I am in your head right now. Kind of hard to avoid ‘hearing’, you know?”

So, he knew. And apparently didn’t mind. And had said he would catch Sam… did that mean...? But why did Sam have to make the leap of faith, couldn’t D’ean just seize the initiative and show him the way....? He thought back, suddenly, to how D’ean had appeared at the doorway to the yurt… scratching to be let in, but not showing himself until Sam had invited him. Of course, this was Sam’s mind, and D’ean was the guest. He couldn’t - wouldn’t - do anything which Sam might not thoroughly endorse. He was waiting for Sam to make up his mind, to gather his courage, because by coming here like this, D’ean had already set his choice in motion. Now it was all up to Sam.

He took a deep breath, looked back into that steady green gaze to borrow strength, and leaned in, closing the gap between them and sealing his lips to D’ean’s. A heartbeat, two, three, the other man’s mouth soft beneath his own, and D’ean wasn’t moving, neither responding to the kiss nor pulling away… Did dragons even kiss? Sam wondered, and then oh, yes, they did. As his last reservations crumbled and he found himself wishing, desperately, his hope in his throat like a fluttering bird, D’ean surged smoothly forward and took possession of the kiss. He bore Sam down onto the bed, their chests pressing together, and his lips firmed against Sam’s and parted them with gentle forcefulness. Sam opened up to him in a willing daze, meeting his tongue with his own; and then not just tongues but hands were exploring, caressing, mapping out one another’s bodies with an urgent thoroughness that finally took them beyond words.

There was something magical, something dreamlike about their lovemaking. It was heady and delicious but everything felt a little hazy, as though softened by too much drink, or the vision inducing drug the shamans brewed from spotted mushrooms. All the sensations were there, but somehow blended and fleeting, every element slipping from his grasp if he tried to concentrate, whether on touch, taste, sound or smell. Only vision seemed to obey him as fully as in the waking world. D’ean covered him with his body, and then somehow, without any clear recollection of how they managed it, he was inside Sam, thrusting powerfully. There was none of the usual hesitancy or fading burn as his muscles adapted to intrusion, just the glorious feeling of fullness and the swelling tide of his own climax. They continued to kiss as D’ean fucked him, his hands lifting and stroking his thighs, and finally Sam’s arousal crested and overwhelmed him without even having to touch himself.

D’ean kept going. Spent and blissfully pliant, Sam lay back and relaxed, enjoying the continued pleasure now that the edge had been taken off. If anything, he felt fuller, stretched to a sensuous ache around his lover, and in no hurry for him to finish. Then D’ean suddenly ceased to thrust, as he groaned into Sam’s mouth and tore his lips free. He nipped and sucked his way urgently along the line of Sam’s jaw, down his throat, and then he tensed and with a growl he bit down on the fleshy part of his shoulder and latched on, making Sam gasp and shudder. D’ean came then, in a rolling wave that went on… and on… while the pressure inside Sam impossibly increased. Just as the dual sensation was beginning to border on painful, D’ean gave a shiver, groaned again, and relaxed, melting down over Sam’s body and nuzzling his way back over his throat and up to his mouth, where he licked his way back inside with an almost apologetic tenderness. He lay still over Sam in a post-coital embrace, but he didn’t withdraw, and Sam could still feel the stretch of him, buried deep within. They kissed lazily for several minutes while Sam waited for D’ean’s cock to soften; but nothing seemed to be happening.

“Um. D’ean?” he tried, stroking his lover’s hair and trying to meet his eyes, which were dark with lust blown pupils. D’ean hummed in response and blinked at him sleepily. “Not that I’m complaining,” Sam went on, and he really wasn’t, “but shouldn’t you… ah, isn’t this the point where… I mean, are we going to lie like this all night?” That would actually be pretty amazing, he thought, and maybe possible since he was (sort of) dreaming; in real life, it was a situation, he knew, that would lead to soreness in the morning.

“It’ll go down eventually,” D’ean murmured, lifting his head to focus on Sam’s face for a moment. “I’m not hurting you, am I?” 

He sounded genuinely concerned and Sam huffed a soft laugh and stroked his hair again. “You know you’re not,” he reassured. “You know everything I’m feeling, don’t you?” he said then, on a note of wonder as he finally realised the truth of his words.

D’ean leaned down again and kissed the tip of Sam’s nose, then brushed his lips against his face, caressing his cheeks, his chin, his forehead. “I know,” he said softly, “just want to make sure you’re comfortable. We could be here a while.”

This statement swirled around in Sam’s brain for a few moments, processing. “Why?” he asked eventually, from simple curiosity. He had the feeling it had more to do with D’ean himself than the dream state. Sam was not a stranger to sex, and certainly no stranger to erotic dreams, but they had never taken quite this turn before.

“Dragon physiology,” D’ean said, and kissed him lightly on the lips. “We… distend, and tie, after completion. I understand it can be quite confusing for our human mates.” He chuckled against Sam’s mouth, tickling, then licked across the seam of his lips.

Sam parted to let him in, suckling on D’ean’s tongue while he considered the situation. He put his arms around his lover, stroking his shoulders and his back, holding him close although he knew he wasn’t going anywhere. He was more than fine with that. Eventually, reluctantly, he pulled back from the kiss so he could speak again, resting his forehead against D’ean’s so as not to lose contact.

“But you’re not a dragon right now,” he said, trying to work it out.

D’ean chuckled again and rubbed his head against Sam’s. “Like I said, confusing. Yes, I’m human, in here - for you - because that’s the only way it could work. But I’m still a dragon, and my dream form responds to my real body. So I’m afraid you’re stuck with me until it deflates. Sorry about that.” He smiled and landed another chaste kiss on Sam’s lips.

“It’s fine,” Sam said, wriggling a little experimentally to feel the push and pull within. It was satisfying, he realised; his human lovers had all withdrawn too soon, leaving him empty and somehow still wanting, though he’d never quite pinpointed the loss at the time. Lying here, with D’ean still inside him, made him feel complete, and right, and wanted in a way he’d never experienced before. “It’s more than fine,” he whispered, and hugged D’ean close. “We have all night, after all, don’t we?”

D’ean hummed his assent and kissed him again, thoroughly. After another while, something else occurred to Sam.

“Um. D’ean?” he asked, in an echo of his first revelation. “If your real body and your dream body are connected… Did you...? I mean, I probably did, that was...” Although wet dreams were something of a past issue, a formative part of his adolescence, this had been intense, and a lot more detailed than the average dream, so he figured it unlikely his own body had not followed through with what his mind conjured. And D’ean...? That had been a prolonged climax, and since he hadn’t been… contained in his true form, where was it all likely to have gone? 

The object of his scrutiny squirmed and buried his face in Sam’s neck, huffing gently in puffs of warm air over his skin. “Ah, it’s fine, don’t worry about it,” he answered, a note of chagrin creeping past the studied indifference. “I’ll clean you up in the morning.”

Right. Sam reflected that Misoori might have been wise after all. It seemed his fate in this world was to be repeatedly sticky. It wasn’t the worst price to pay, he decided, settling down to cuddle. D’ean was a warm, solid weight above him, not too heavy or restrictive as he would have been in reality, just a comforting, affectionate presence. Sam drifted to sleep within sleep, his fingers carding through his lover’s hair. He stroked his scalp through the bristle soft strands as D’ean nuzzled his throat and started a continual, low rumbling that sounded suspiciously like a purr.


	9. Chapter 9

Sam woke to the insistent pull and slippery rub of D’ean’s long tongue over every inch of his skin. It set a curl of heat low in his belly that made him shiver, and for a few minutes he just lay there blinking and trying to get his bearings, and a grip on his body. The soft drumbeat of rain still pattered in his ears, but he was lying on the ground, not on his bed in the yurt, with his head pillowed on… D’ean’s forefoot, he realised, like an age softened log. The scales were indented in his cheek and he peeled his head up and looked around muzzily. He couldn’t see the sky overhead for a great, dark canopy that spread over him like a leather awning… oh, of course. It was the dragon’s wing, shielding him from the rain, and as water hit the outstretched membrane it made the thrumming sound that had echoed softly throughout his dream all night.

Had it just been a dream, he wondered, or was it real? Like dreams, and unlike his vision, he didn’t have a clear recollection of it all, but he remembered enough; and it added to the pulsing coil of need that grew insistent between his legs.

“Mine,” D’ean growled, in a tender but decisive tone that reverberated through Sam’s brain, and he glanced over to the great, scaled head poking underneath the edge of his own wing. D’ean’s eyes shone softly as he looked at Sam. “Mine,” he said again, more quietly but with an unmistakable ring of triumph. “Mate.” His tongue flicked out again to slide wetly across Sam’s face and he laughed, fending it off like some over friendly water snake.

“Having trouble with words of more than one syllable this morning?” he greeted D’ean, affectionately. He felt a surge of happiness lift him, filling him as though with sunlight. The dream had been real, and D’ean was his - or he was D’ean’s, it didn’t matter; they were one and the same. Mate. He had been claimed, and even though it was all rather fast and unexpected, it felt so right, like something he had been waiting for unknowingly all his life. Another piece of the dream came to him then and he put his hand up to his neck, startled; feeling for the bite. There was nothing there, not even a hint of soreness, and he felt obscurely disappointed.

“I can’t bite you for real,” D’ean rumbled, nosing gently at Sam’s shoulder. “I’d take your head off.” 

“I know,” Sam said, and pressed a kiss to the obsidian shield-plate. “I just feel like… I want something to remind me it really happened, you know? Something tangible. A memento I can anchor to the dream and keep it from dissolving.”

D’ean watched him thoughtfully out of one large, green eye. “Hrrrmmm,” he rumbled. “If you’re after a scar, we can probably work something out. What if I…” He opened his jaws wide and tilted his head a little, so that Sam could step between them if he wanted, like a voluntary sacrifice. If those fangs snapped shut… Sam didn’t hesitate. He trusted D’ean absolutely. He leaned forward, resting his chest across the bottom row of knife like teeth. D’ean stayed completely still. The fangs were sharp, but not so needle pointed as to pierce his skin straight away. Sam manoeuvred himself to place one massive canine at the side of his neck, just above his collar bone, where he still felt the dream bite like a phantom itch beneath his skin. He didn’t want the sensation to fade. He put his hands up to either side of D’ean’s jaw to anchor himself, and pressed down. The fang butted into his flesh for a moment, painfully, and then the skin split and the ache released in a sharp, heady pain and a warm gush of blood that made his cock jump. He gasped and pulled back, cupping his hand to the wound possessively. D’ean made a soft sound and flicked his tongue out towards Sam’s shoulder, but he thrust his other hand out as a barrier.

“No you don’t,” he said, smiling. “I want to keep this, remember, and you’ll heal it right up if you go licking it now.”

“I’ll lick it next time you’re asleep then,” D’ean replied, and Sam knew he didn’t mean as a dragon. “You do that,” he replied softly, and stroked the scaly cheek just under the dragon’s eye. The eye closed and D’ean pressed against Sam’s hand, a low whine vibrating in his throat.

Sam swallowed past the lump rapidly forming in his own throat, and coughed. “Should probably start getting ready to leave,” he suggested gruffly. Hanging around and canoodling like this was all very nice, but there was only so far they could take it in the daytime; Sam wanted to be up and doing, so that he didn’t have time to think too hard about tonight. Sleep couldn’t come too soon again.

D’ean snorted and drew back his head, then with a rustle like the growl of far off thunder, he folded his wing, and let the rain pelt down onto Sam, something of a blessing on his heated skin. “You wanting breakfast?” he asked with a fake nonchalance that did not escape Sam. “Only it might be a little difficult, lighting a fire in this weather...?”

“I could bring the other haunch along, for later…” Sam considered, doubtfully. It would be an awkward and grisly thing to carry in his lap during flight. D’ean snorted again. “Oh yes, dribbling blood all over my scales; you offering to wash me before or after we meet up with my mother?”

Sam laughed and shook his head. “You eat the rest of it then,” he chuckled. “You have all that extra weight to carry today. And I’m sure we can find something else.”

“Mm, we’ll reach the mountains today,” D’ean agreed. “And dragonfruit. You’ll like it.”

He busied himself with the rest of the deer carcase while Sam went to find water. He took some moments to admire the view; the mountains were much closer, though not much clearer due to the misting veil of rain, but they loomed up darkly impressive before him. In those mountains, he thought, they might find the answers he was seeking. They might find his own mother. And then what...? his mind supplied. He still wanted, needed to know the truth, however painful it might turn out; but he had already gained so much more than he expected from this vision quest. His very own dragon; his mate. He couldn’t help the grin that stole across his face as he thought about how his father would respond to the news, and Misoori. They were of the Tribes of the Dragon, but did either of them have the slightest notion that the chieftain’s heir might come back hand-fasted to one? His fingers stole to his shoulder, caressing the tooth scratch, and it occurred to him to check his other wound. He put his hand to his side, then looked down, puzzled. The wight scratches had completely healed; not even a seam of scar tissue marred the smooth flesh. The only sign he had ever been hurt was a faint discoloration of the skin, pinkish stripes underlining his ribs like shadows. D’ean’s healing breath, and tongue, were potent indeed.

They reached the edge of the mountains by early evening, as the sky to their left began to blush in fiery welcome of the setting sun. The rain had eased off by the end of the morning and they had flown low, so that Sam wouldn’t develop a chill, but he ached from the unaccustomed inactivity and was looking forward to landing and foraging for his evening meal, and a place to rest.

D’ean flew west along the mountain wall, looking, as far as Sam could gather, for a way in. The dragons, he explained, lived mostly in the interior of the stony fastness, in caves along steep valley walls, from which they could drop into instant flight upon the morning wind. There was no point in their soaring up to the snow capped heights; the view would be tremendous, but the air thin and cold, and no dragons could be found so high.

As the sun dropped lower towards the lip of the horizon, D’ean finally found the opening he was searching for. He banked and glided between the buttressed jaws of a wide gorge that unfurled lazily like a lapping tongue, spilling a river of tumbling cataracts out into the bowl of the plains. The walls of the ravine rose stark and grey above them, abruptly shadowing the light, but the edges of the water were green with vegetation and gleamed warm and inviting in the last, golden glow of the hour before sunset.

“This looks a likely place to find dragonfruit,” D’ean remarked, “and we can stop here for one more night. Not far to go now at all, but I’m not navigating through a mountain valley in the dark.”

He angled his wings and stooped down in a series of shallow zig zags, finally coming to a precision landing on a wide, flat rock beside the roaring water. He snorted, pleased with himself, and Sam slapped his neck as he slid from his back, grinning.

“Nice touchdown,” he said, fully embracing his role as teasing admirer of all his lover’s draconic abilities. “Just a little further to the left and we could have had a bracing bath.”

“I’ll give you bracing,” D’ean growled playfully, and swatted at Sam with the edge of a wing, which he easily ducked. Laughing, he jumped down from the rock and winced as his muscles protested. He swung and stretched his way through a series of limbering exercises as D’ean lowered his head to the water and sucked in sparkling draughts, thirsty from so much flying.

“This is just the right place to find dragonfruit,” D’ean remarked, and Sam went wandering off along the verges of the river in search of anything edible. It wasn’t long before he came across a sprawl of thorny bushes, not unlike brambles but denser and more upright, with bright red, wicked looking thorns. He had never seen a plant like it before. The leaves had jagged edges and a dark red outline, like old blood. Nestled in among the spines were small, round fruits that grew in clusters of three like eggs in a basket. Most of them were green and hard but a few were beginning to take on a waxy sheen and glimmered white like pearls. Sam cautiously picked out one of the riper looking fruits and nibbled on it. It had a surprising flavour for a fruit; not tangy at all, as he’d expected, but creamy and slightly spicy, reminding him vaguely of Misoori’s tea. He ate a bit more, peeling back the juicy flesh with his teeth, and revealing the shiny black stone in the centre of the drupe. A test bite suggested that the stone was inedible, so he pitched it back among the thorns. If he wanted to make a decent meal of these strange fruits, he would need to gather quite a few, and the thorns would make the job time consuming. Sam was soon absorbed in the diligent task of collecting a steadily growing pile on the ground. He put his slowly developing headache down to the lengthening shadows, which forced him to peer through the dense leaves to find what he was seeking among the thorns.

Eventually, Sam had amassed enough fruit to keep his hunger at bay for another evening. He piled them into his loincloth like a makeshift bag and carried them back to the river, only then realising how dark it had become. The overhanging shade of the mountain peaks clutched the narrow ravine in grasping fingers and he shivered a little with the encroaching chill. Leaving the fruit with D’ean, who sniffed at them in a curious but desultory fashion, he gathered enough dry brush to make a small fire, but knew it wouldn’t last long. It didn’t matter; he would have no real need of a fire, snuggled up to D’ean, he just liked to have one. It kept the dark at bay and made the night seem more cheerful.

D’ean had trampled out a wide, flat space beside the river and now he lay down, curled around Sam like a bulwark open only to the chuckling water, and laid his head alongside the stack of kindling. He watched silently while Sam got the fire going, the flickering flames reflected in his eyes.

“You can bake them on the fire like eggs,” he remarked suddenly, as Sam sat chewing on a fruit and staring out into the dark throat of the night. Sam couldn’t shake the pulsing ache in his temples that had been bothering him since they landed, and he felt ill at ease in this narrow valley, hemmed in by water and stone. 

“You seem to know a lot about cooking, for a dragon,” Sam said with a chuckle, glad of the distraction. 

D’ean blinked at him slowly in the light of the fire. “Lisl liked them that way,” he said; and then, with finality, “but I don’t want to talk about her. I’ve got you now. I just thought you’d want to try it, since you have the fire already.”

Sam scraped out a little hollow beneath the embers at the edge of the fire and poked some of the dragonfruit within. After a while, he retrieved them one by one on the point of his knife and ate them, occasionally shaking burned fingertips. The charred skin peeled back easily from the solidified flesh and it turned out D’ean - or Lisl - was right, they did taste good this way, the flavour intensified and the fruit warming his belly as he consumed them.

As the fire died down, Sam leaned back against the dragon’s side and closed his eyes, wincing a little and massaging the headache that still refused to abate. It was probably the lack of food, he decided, and he slipped into a doze running through plans for how he would eat once he could stop flying around the place looking for answers; once he could go home to D’ean’s lair and settle down. Home… A soft smile drifted across his face as he realised he was already thinking of living with D’ean, of establishing a new life here in this world, with his dragon.

A low growl vibrated against Sam’s back, startling him up from sleep, and his head twinged unpleasantly.

“Sam, we have company. There are Shade creeping up the edge of the river,” D’ean cautioned. He was still lying down, but his head was raised high on upstretched neck, intently scanning the valley back towards the way they had come. The fire was cold ashes and the night was thick about them, stars cold and unregarding in the slash of sky that yawned over the ravine.

Sam stumbled groggily to his feet, shaking his head to clear his senses. He peered along with D’ean but his human eyes could make out nothing in the dark. His head stabbed again and he mentally kicked himself with the flash of realisation; he should have recognised the tell-tale signs, after his experience at the stone circle.

“What can you see?” he hissed, drawing his knife and adopting a loose, fight-ready stance by D’ean’s shoulder.

“Three - no, maybe four - they’re hard to make out, they move in shadow; they are shadows, like smoke given form,” D’ean said. He rose up onto his own feet then and crouched, like a hunting cat, his muscles coiled.

“Did they follow us here?” Sam asked, worried; disbelieving. They had flown, and D’ean had kept well away from the leylines, so they should have been as untraceable as the wind. 

“I don’t think these came from the circle,” D’ean answered, tensely. “I think they’ve been hiding here, near the valley, all along.”

“Waiting for us...?” Sam wondered. And now they were caught, grounded in the dark...

“Who knows?” D’ean replied with another audible growl and a shake of his head. “Us, or other dragons… There aren’t many ways into the mountains, we tend to use established routes. Up until recently it wasn’t a problem; they’ve never stalked us so close before.”

‘Before mother…’ Sam thought, his stomach curdling. ‘Before me…’ 

“Hey,” D’ean growled again, and swayed sideways slightly, just enough to bodycheck Sam with his tree trunk of a leg. “Enough of that. Whatever the Shade are up to, it’s none of your fault. I chose to come and meet you at the circle, didn’t I? So blame me, if you’re going to blame anyone. I’d rather just lay it all on them. And if they want a fight…” 

Sam glanced up at the feral satisfaction in D’ean’s tone, and although it was hard to see in the darkness, starlight gleamed off rows of serrated fangs as the dragon grinned. Sam squared his shoulders and gritted his teeth against the pounding in his head. He tried hard not to think of his mother, caught fast between two Shade at the circle before she burned. There was a soft hiss above him and suddenly he was breathing in the familiar scent of autumn mist and the rich, spicy tang of leaf mould, and his head cleared; at least enough to let him see straight, if there had been anything he could see.

“We fought well against the wights,” D’ean said softly, “and there were more of them.”

“It’s too dark for me to use my bow,” Sam pointed out. Then he thought of something and turned to where he had laid aside bow and quiver when he sat down to eat. He drew out the horn of the unicorn from the container of arrows and stared at it, entranced.

“D’ean, look!” he hissed. The horn was glowing, rippling with a tracery of blue fire that licked around its spiraling edge to flare at the point. The flames were cool, the faintest tickle in Sam’s hand like melting frost. He could feel D’ean’s wordless surprise and he stepped back to his shoulder, hefting the horn like a spear in one hand and his knife in the other. His confidence surged, and now he felt the battle elation, the Dragon’s Wrath, spreading through him like fire in his blood.

“Something tells me they’re not going to like this much,” he said with grim satisfaction. All the old tales of his tribe told that unicorns were pure and good, natural enemies of all that was evil. He was sure the horn was reacting to the presence of the Shade, and his instinct told him that the blue fire would burn them worse than iron.

“We’ll find out in a moment,” D’ean rumbled. “Keep close to the water; they don’t fear it, but they can’t move over it and it will cut them off from a flanking attack on that side.”

“What about your side?” Sam wanted to ask, but he knew D’ean was more worried for his soft bodied human companion, and he had seen the dragon’s long, agile neck and snapping jaws in action against the wights. His mate could look after himself; Sam needed to concentrate on holding his own. His head was starting to pound again, despite the rallying of the berserker heat and the dragon’s healing breath.

“Definitely four of them,” D’ean said softly. “Can you see? They are spreading out, in a line just past that stand of willows. Here they come.”

Sam peered ahead but it was no use, the moon was still behind the shoulder of the mountains and all he could see was a mass of shifting shadows, commingled and indistinct. He raised the glowing horn like a torch, though he had little hope of it providing any real light; and suddenly, four of the shadows sprang into sharp relief, black limned against the softer grey of their surroundings.

“I see them!” he cried softly, and then the Shade surged forward and attacked.

This time was very different from their skirmish with the bone wights. D’ean fought much the same as before, blasting the area with a swinging arc of mist to keep the enemy at bay. At first the Shade tackled D’ean alone, hemming him in and harrying, creeping always just outside the reach of his breath. They taunted him, drawing him around to prevent them from slinking past, and in this way widened the gap between Sam and the river, as he stayed close to D’ean’s side. 

It was an obvious tactic but there wasn’t much to be done about it, and finally their patience won out, as one shadow broke away from the others and slipped along the bank of the river on Sam’s unprotected side. He turned to put D’ean at his back and held up the horn, whose fire was raging now in the Shade’s proximity, throwing off heatless sparks. The entity gibbered and wavered before him like a hole in the night, vaguely humanoid but formless. It reached out with elongated arms and clutching, shadowy fingers, but shrank back each time he thrust at it with horn or blade. It made a continual hissing sound, like rain sizzling on the embers of a fire, and the pressure in Sam’s head grew until it was almost unbearable, making his eyes water and his vision swim. They tested one another, back and forth, while D’ean raged behind him, kept in check by his own assailants. 

The Shade kept circling, fanning out and closing in, and D’ean was forced to turn with them, away from the river. Abruptly, with no discernible signal, they split up; two of the Shade pressed in on D’ean’s left flank while the third drifted back around to join its fellow menacing Sam. They were each two on one now, but Sam’s blood was up and he had seen how the Shade avoided the unicorn’s horn, and he wasn’t remotely afraid. He favoured the flaming horn over his knife, and it had the longer reach. He lunged forward suddenly, on the offensive, and felt a fierce surge of satisfaction as the tip of the horn drove into the centre of the area approximating its chest. The horn flared bright, there was a sound like tearing cloth, and the Shade popped like a bubble with a peculiar, hissing wail. Sam had no time to congratulate himself; his head pulsed as though his brain were turning inside out and he stumbled to his knees, gasping. Cold grasped his skull like bands of ice and he realised, too late, that he had moved too far from the shield wall of the dragon at his side, and opened himself to attack by the other Shade behind him.

D’ean’s head swung around and with a deafening roar, he let loose a cascade of chilling mist over Sam and the Shade that had him in its clutches. The Shade shrieked and boiled, dissipating in the dragon’s breath like melting fat, flecks of shadow spinning around Sam in a disintegrating maelstrom. He turned, staggering to his feet to face D’ean, when the dragon’s roar changed in tone to an unearthly, ringing shriek of rage and pain that rolled over Sam in an almost physical wave, battering at his already throbbing skull. D’ean’s head whipped around and his breath sprayed along the ridge of his back as he targeted the Shade that had crept in at close quarters while he was distracted saving Sam.

Sam ran around in front of D’ean, wobbling on unsteady legs as his head continued to pound as though it were splitting. He was brought up short by one of the remaining Shade and lashed out with his flaming spear-horn, keeping it at bay; but behind him, D’ean seemed to be in trouble, thrashing about and roaring, and the waves of his pain and fury did not let up.

“What’s wrong, what’s happening?” Sam shouted, not daring to take his eyes off his own opponent, which hovered just out of reach, clearly stalling.

D’ean’s response thundered in his mind, more a barrage of sensations and emotion than an articulate voice, like a flood of sensory images.

_Wing torn - dragging - can’t reach - underneath - hurting - kill it - get it off!_

“D’ean, I can’t get to you!” Sam shouted. “The other one’s here, it’s cutting me off! Swing round and breathe on it, then I’ll get to the one at your wing.”

But D’ean was too wrapped up in his struggle with the Shade to heed Sam. It seemed to be clinging to the underside of his wing like a burr, digging in with its talons of freezing smoke, and the pain was maddening the dragon beyond the ability to think. Sam cursed and lunged at the shadow in front of him, but it slipped away to the side, further from D’ean, and he knew he couldn’t turn his back on it or they would both be lost. They might be lost already; they were in serious trouble; when an answering roar rang out from further up the valley, strident as a battle horn and clear as a bell. There was a rushing wind, strangely warm, and a flickering light in the sky.

The Shade in front of Sam shrank back, wavered for a moment, then took off, stretched out low to the ground and billowing like wind chased fog. The one attached to D’ean’s wing dropped off a moment later and rolled in its haste to get away, tumbling down the valley in a featureless clot of shadow. Sam turned, gaping, to see what had driven them away.

Flying down the length of the valley was another dragon, wreathed in flames, and as it arrowed out of the night towards them, ringing its challenge, the night lit up with its fiery orange glow.


	10. Chapter 10

The newcomer soared overhead, giving chase to the fleeing Shade, then wheeled in the sky and returned to them. As it touched down, the surrounding flames flickered and died until the night enveloped them once again; but not before Sam had seen the gleam of scales as burnished as gold. D’ean was pacing back and forth, growling and muttering to himself and nosing in distress at his hanging wing, and Sam expected the other dragon to go to him; but it did not.

“Sammy!” it greeted him, mind to mind as D’ean spoke, and although the voice was deep and rich in dragon tones, it was much lighter than D’ean’s and instantly identifiable as female. It was also overcome with emotion, vibrating with love and joy as the golden dragon stretched its head out to Sam and gently nuzzled his chest in a gesture he was becoming familiar with.

“My baby boy,” it went on, “my darling. I’ve missed you so much. How you have grown! How long has it been, my love?”

Sam stared, slack jawed, as the rush of puzzle pieces slotting into place blew through his mind like a whirlwind, scattering all articulate thought. He put his hand out to stroke the broad muzzle automatically as the dragon continued to nudge at his chest, crooning softly. D’ean had stopped pacing to stare at them both, but stayed silent. Finally, Sam marshalled his wits enough to speak one word.

“Mother…?”

“My Sammy,” she purred, “my little one.”

“Sam,” D’ean rumbled in an accusatory tone, “you might have mentioned that your mother was a dragon!”

“I didn’t know!” Sam cried. “I don’t even - how is this possible? When did it happen?”

Maire - or Mai’re as he supposed she should be called now - drew back and tilted her head a little to the side. “You mean your father never told you?” she asked, sounding sad.

“Wait… what?!” Sam’s jaw dropped again. “You mean… you’ve always been a dragon? And he knew it, all along? He knew, and he never told me?”

“Perhaps he was angry,” the dragon’s head drooped, and D’ean snorted and went back to nosing at his wing. “I left you both, and I’m sorry for it… I am so sorry, my darling, but I had no choice. The Shade came, and…”

“It’s alright,” Sam interrupted, “I know; I had a vision.” His heart swelling with emotion, he stepped forward and hesitantly put out a hand to rest on the dragon’s - his mother’s - great scaly head, between the eyes. “Nobody knew what had happened to you though, and I always assumed… honestly, I thought you must have died, even though Father never said so… but he must have known, or at least, he must have suspected that you’d gone back through the circle…” Must have thought she had abandoned them, he realised, his chest clenching as he realised how her husband must have interpreted her absence. No wonder he had said nothing to Sam, growing up; son, your mother is a dragon, but she left us to go back to her own kind… No, that wasn’t a conversation he could imagine them ever having.

“I didn’t abandon you,” she whispered, distraught. “Oh Sammy, forgive me, please; I never would have left you, either of you, but they caught me… I came to the circle to talk to your father,” she swung her head towards D’ean for a moment, “and they were waiting, hidden among the shadows of the stones. They slipped through before he realised, and they would have taken me hostage. You know what they want,” again she addressed D’ean, “and I couldn’t let it happen; I couldn’t let them through into your world Sam, let them threaten my baby. As long as I stayed within the circle, I knew they couldn’t cross over fully; but I would have been trapped. There was only one thing to do, and I made the crossing. I returned to our world, to keep yours safe.”

D’ean’s head came up then and he stared at the golden dragon. “But the change,” he said, sounding tense and uncertain. “It’s only supposed to be one way…”

“I know,” she replied. “It took a great deal out of me; I nearly died. If your father hadn’t been there to open the way, I don’t think I could have survived it. As it was, it took me many moons to recover, and then… I came back to the circle, hoping he would be there, my Johann…”

Sam’s head swam with the weight of her sorrow and regret, as well as the revelations that were crashing down on him, thick and fast. His mother, a dragon? And that meant that he; was he a dragon, too, or a - a half dragon? How did that work, exactly? And who else knew of this, did Misoori, was that why she had been so insistent on his coming here, to discover the truth…?

“My child,” Mai’re said suddenly, nosing his chest again. “You must have so many questions, and I will answer them all, of course; but your brother is injured, and we should not linger here in case the Shade return, and bring reinforcements. If he can walk, we should help him higher up the valley, there may be a place more easily defended where we can wait out the night, and…”

“Just a moment,” Sam said with a calm he definitely was not feeling, and he stared at D’ean, who pretended to be busy with his wing. “Did you just call D’ean… my brother?”

There was a short, charged silence, like the quiet before the storm.

“Well, yes,” Mai’re sounded bewildered. “Your half brother, of course; his father is a dragon, as yours is human. But you are both my children. My precious boys, from two different worlds.”

Sam jerked backwards, his hands clenching into fists at his sides. He glared at D’ean. “You knew!” he whispered, accusing. “You knew, the moment she greeted me, and you didn’t…”

D’ean blinked at him and snorted softly. “Well I don’t know what you wanted me to say,” he said in a mildly aggrieved tone. “I only just found out myself, I was surprised too! But it doesn’t make a difference, does it?” His tone turned plaintive. “I mean, you’re half dragon, that’s awesome! And you’re family! That’s a good thing, isn’t it..?” He stretched his head out towards Sam, who stepped back violently, shaking.

“No, it isn’t good,” he whispered, feeling sick. “It isn’t good at all.” He felt tears prickle in his eyes and he looked desperately from one dragon to another. Both stared at him, uncomprehending. Mai’re, he could understand, but D’ean - he knew what they had done! What they couldn’t have, not any more, not if they were related… He felt as though he had been given the world, only to have it snatched away because he was tainted, and unworthy.

“Sam…” D’ean started, full of concern, but Sam didn’t want to hear it. “No!” he shouted, covering his ears; and a wall slammed into place in his head instinctively, shutting both dragons out. “No,” he said again, quieter but unsteady. “I don’t - leave me alone! Just… let me think, I have to - let me be for a while, please.” His voice wavered on a sob and he turned on his heel and ran blindly into the dark, retaining at least enough sense to follow the river so that he wouldn’t get lost. He didn’t run far. It was too dark, and he was aware that it would be foolhardy, with the possibility of the Shade’s return. He didn’t want to run away altogether, at least not here; where could he run to after all? But he needed privacy to work through this mess of emotions, and he hoped they would understand, and honour at least that much. He fetched up at last against a boulder at the water’s edge, running into it headlong and nearly knocking himself cold, besides scraping himself bloody in several places. He slid to the ground and laid his back against the stone, buried his head in his knees, and gave himself up to deliberating on the unfairness of life, and dragons in particular.

After a while, he felt calmer, and realised that he was being at least a little selfish. D’ean hadn’t known, any more than him, and he was injured and stuck down by the river in the first place the Shade would look for them. He owed it to him to help as much as he could; get him somewhere safer where he could lie up and heal, and then… well, they could discuss their options once they were no longer at risk of further attack. No point thinking about it until then; he could deal with the present, but only if he refused to consider the future. He got up, wiped his eyes with the backs of his hands, and trekked back along the river to where he had left his mother - and his brother.

The sky was beginning to lighten as he picked his way along, and he knew that dawn was not far off. The small hours of the night were always the hardest for the most volatile emotions, he knew, and on top of that he had been coming down from the battle rage, jittery and vulnerable. He had suffered too many surprises in one night, with the attacking Shade, the spectacular arrival of the dragon who turned out to be his mother, and everything else that brought with it. It was no wonder he had flaked out for a time, he thought; but he was an adult, a warrior and the son of a chieftain (and half a dragon, no less!) and it was about time he began conducting himself as such. With these remonstrances, in the short time it took to navigate his way back to the dragons he had fully mastered himself and banished his feelings to the back of his mind. It was a miracle he hadn’t come to a worse grief than his encounter with the boulder in his haphazard flight; he could easily have pitched into the river and drowned, but some instinct or outward guiding force had kept him safe, and he decided to take that as a sign that things were not as bad as they could have been.

The dragons were curled together, their necks entwined, and Mai’re was nuzzling D’ean’s awkwardly outstretched wing as Sam approached. They looked up as one and regarded him with quiet concern from shining eyes, one set green and one as tawny as a lynx’s.

“Hey,” he greeted them quietly, and felt the wall in his mind dissolve at his will. “Sorry about that. It was a lot to deal with, all at once; but I know we need to find somewhere safer to rest. The Shade could come back any time before it’s light; I’m guessing they aren’t too fond of the sun, but this valley is shaded and it’ll be noon before there’s no place left for them to hide. I’m already responsible for D’ean getting hurt, and I only just found you,” he nodded to Mai’re, “I don’t want to see you falling into their clutches again.”

He felt the touch of D’ean’s mind on his, feather-light; realised that he had missed its constant, familiar presence while his mental barrier was in place. It was like the breeze, or sunlight; so natural and pervasive that it registered only in its absence, and rather than being intrusive, he found it comforting. D’ean didn’t say anything, he just seemed to be testing the bounds of Sam’s emotional state, and eventually drew back, satisfied. Sam was grateful once again that the dragon wasn’t one to press him for explanations; he fully intended to sort things through with his newfound - lover, brother, friend; whatever he turned out to be - but in his own time, and when they had time to spare, not now.

“We’ve been talking about that while you were… off gathering your thoughts,” Mai’re said, tactfully. “My lair is at the head of the valley, but it’s high in the mountainside and there’s no way to reach it without flying. The Shade knew what they were doing; singly, or in a small group like that, they can’t do much to hurt a dragon, but they have effectively disabled D’ean. It’s only a matter of time before more come, and it isn’t safe for him to stay on the ground.”

“Can’t you heal him?” Sam asked, puzzled. “D’ean’s been healing me all the time; from when a wight tore my side back at the Dragon’s Eye, and every time the Shade, or their creatures, make my head hurt.”

“That’s because of what he is,” Mai’re explained. “He’s an earth dragon, and his affinity is for healing, besides opening the portals. I’m afraid that’s not my talent. My affinity is for fire.”

“Is that what happened when they caught you then, in my vision?” Sam wondered. “The flames, they didn’t burn you; did you cause them, like earlier tonight?”

“In a way,” she answered, “but by circumstance, not design. Our powers don’t cross over to your world, Sam; we change when we pass through the portals, becoming mortal; human. Once there, I was just an ordinary woman, with no more power to command fire than you have. Crossing back, reversing the change… somehow that released the flames you saw, and burned the Shade who held me. I have all my abilities again, but they are no use to D’ean in our present situation.”

“I can’t heal myself, either,” D’ean put in, intercepting Sam’s next question. “That ability only works on others, unfortunately. My father could do it, and Mai’re was thinking of going to fetch him; but we’ll have to hole up somewhere along the valley to wait, and it will take time. Remember I told you we dragons are territorial and aloof? Well that’s come back to bite me in the ass, now help isn’t near at hand.”

Sam chewed his lip anxiously as he thought, his personal worries quite forgotten in the gravity of D’ean’s predicament. If only there was some other way of healing near at hand; some herb they could use for medicine, though it would take more than an ointment to mend the torn wing vane and make it strong enough to fly. In the tales of his childhood, there was always a magical solution to help the hero in his hour of need. Just like the unicorn’s horn had assisted Sam; yes, the Shade had hurt D’ean, but without the horn they would not have held out as long as they did, and Sam was fairly certain they would have taken him; and then what, he didn’t want to think about.

Wait. The unicorn’s horn. The stories had a lot to say about unicorns, it was why Sam had been so distressed at the thought of them being hunted; they had power over evil, that he had proven for himself, but they were also said to have the power of healing. Was it possible..? Where was the horn? He had dropped it when the Shade grabbed him, and when Mai’re had chased them off, its blue flames had extinguished and it had lain hidden in the grass. But dawn was rapidly approaching, the valley brightening with a pearly glimmer, and it couldn’t be far, it had to be around here somewhere…

Sam searched the trampled ground around the area of the attack, while the dragons watched him curiously. Finally he found it, a slender gleam of white that caught his eye among the green, and he pounced and held it aloft in triumph. D’ean eyed him dubiously, but permitted him to approach his tattered wing. “I don’t suppose it can hurt to try,” he said, nosing at Sam’s hair, “but don’t get your hopes up. I never heard of a unicorn with a dragon’s abilities - AH!”

Sam had touched the horn to the top of the long rent in D’ean’s wing as he was speaking, and now it flared suddenly at the tip, emitting a glowing silvery energy, rose pink at its heart. The edges of the tear suffused with blood at its touch, and seemed to melt together, fusing seamlessly but for a thin, pink line.

“You were saying?” Sam grinned, and guided the horn along the length of the rip, fastening the membrane back together more neatly than the stitching on a ceremonial tunic. “You hadn’t heard of them fighting Shade, either. If you spent less time hunting them and more time watching what they get up to… there. That’s fixed it. How does it feel?”

D’ean flexed his wing experimentally, stretched it out high over his head, then shook it, finally nosing along the line of the mend. “Feels fine,” he said with a grudging respect. “Strong enough to fly up to Mai’re’s cave, anyway. But I still don’t understand -”

Mai’re interrupted him. “I think we’ve waited around long enough. As Sam said, it will still be some time before the sun hits the valley floor, and we should leave. Fly now, talk later. Sam, you should ride on my back, to test D’ean’s wing as little as possible.”

Sam hastily gathered up his bow and quiver, slotting the horn back into place among his arrows. He mounted with some hesitation; he was riding on his mother’s back! But once settled, the familiar position helped to dispel his discomposure, even though the scales beneath his legs were golden instead of inky green. The biggest difference was the spine he gripped to anchor himself. The protrusions from Mai’re’s back were nothing like the faceted crystals that rose from D’ean’s scaly ridge. Her spikes were smooth and metallic, gleaming dully like pure gold, slightly curved and tapering much like inverted fangs. The one he gripped felt hot to the touch, not enough to be uncomfortable but a reminder of the way she had streaked down the valley to their rescue, wreathed in flames.

“Are you settled back there?” Mai’re enquired, and at his confirmation, she was off; turning and angling herself for the take-off run along the river needed to propel herself into flight. She circled anxiously, watching as D’ean launched himself into the sky, but the wing held and he looped around them, letting forth a victorious roar to challenge any lurking Shade who might be watching.

“We’ll be back for you,” he shot with vengeful malice.

“Yes, of course,” Sam soothed him, half laughing at his bloodthirstiness. “But later. Let’s make sure that wing is fully healed, first.”

Mai’re guided them up the valley and higher up the mountain escarpment, rising in lazy spirals on the chill, predawn air. They had to fight for every step in altitude, as the cool air did less to lift their wings. “That’s another reason we prefer not to fly at night,” D’ean told him, struggling a little with the exertion as his wing pained him. Sam worried, but “It’s tender, but I can make it far enough,” the dragon gasped in his mind.

He managed the short journey, but barely; as the sun was just peeking over the craggy tops of the mountain wall, spilling a wash of gold over the opposite stony face, Mai’re turned and dipped and glided gracefully into a large cave opening in the sheer rock. She ran lightly forwards to make room for D’ean, who crashed in behind her with considerably less finesse and lay there, panting, with his eyes closed.

Sam scrambled down from his mother’s back and rushed to D’ean, cradling the side of his head. Then he turned to check the wing, which D’ean was holding out awkwardly to the side as though it hurt too much to furl. The seam along the leathery vane still held, but it was an ugly red and pulsing and the skin around it looked stretched and sore. 

“I’ll be… fine,” D’ean muttered as Sam fussed over him. “Just tired… a little stiff. Need to rest. Will you… stay with me, just for a little while?”

“Of course,” Sam assured him, turning back to his head and stroking the great, scaled cheek. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“You should both sleep,” Mai’re said softly from the back of the cave. “I’ll stay on guard, although nothing can get up here without wings.”

Sam divested himself of his weapons and sat down, settling himself into his customary position, curled up against D’ean’s side and tucked into the crook of his elbow. He looked out past the cave entrance, now framing a sky as pretty as a wildflower meadow in pastel hues of apricot, rose and gold. He deliberately let his mind empty of all thoughts and fears as he watched the sunrise, instead focusing on his breathing, which gradually matched the slow rise and fall of the scaly flank at his back. They were safe, and he had done what he set out to do; he had found his mother at last. Everything else could wait.

He slept.


	11. Epilogue

The cave was large and smooth, like a burrow dug into the mountain. The curving walls and roof were rippled and glassy, as though they had been melted in a very hot flame, and Sam felt as though he was sitting inside a giant, hollowed out eggshell. He wondered whether his mother had fashioned this cave with her fiery breath, or if another dragon had dwelt here before her. He had so many questions; and all the time in the world to find out the answers, if he stayed.

That was the biggest question of all. He looked around, frowning, wondering where the dragons had gone; he seemed to be alone in the cave. Then he looked back towards the entrance, and the multicoloured splendour of the sunrise. His frown deepened. Hadn’t he slept; shouldn’t the sky be blue by now? Some noise or other sensation dragged at his awareness and his gaze roamed down to the sandy floor of the cave. A man-sized figure was sitting at the edge of the cave mouth, legs dangling out into the open air, apparently admiring the view.

“D’ean?” Sam called, softly, and the man turned to look at him over his shoulder. He smiled hesitantly, nothing like the joyous, toothy grin with which he had greeted Sam in their first dream meeting, and something inside Sam twisted with an ache that seemed a lot like longing. He got up and padded over to the lip of the cave, stood for a moment looking out over the valley; then he folded his legs and sat down next to D’ean, facing forward so that they were looking out of the cave together. 

“Is the view from your cave as spectacular as this?” he asked, quietly.

D’ean shrugged, the rise and fall of his shoulders just visible in the periphery of Sam’s vision. “It’s a good view,” he said, “but it’s better with someone to share it.”

Sam was silent for a moment and D’ean seemed content to wait.

“I thought…” he said eventually. “I wanted to; when we were - I thought we were - I mean, before things changed.”

“Have things changed, though?” D’ean answered, gravely. Sam saw him turn his head to look at him, again just out of the corner of his eye. He swallowed.

“I have a brother,” he said, trying out the truth in a statement to see how it felt. “I’m half dragon.”

“More than half, actually,” D’ean responded.

Now it was Sam’s turn to look at D’ean, surprised and confused. “More than..?” he said. “I don’t understand.”

D’ean’s eyes held his gaze, serious and tender and a little sad. “Our mother isn’t the first dragon to have crossed into your world,” he said. “Our people have been together, mingled their bloodlines, over generations. Everyone in the Tribes of the Dragon; everyone with the ability to speak to us, to hear us and see us across the portals - all those psychic abilities that hold your people apart from other humans - those gifts are the power of the dragon blood running in your veins.”

“So my father… has dragon blood, too?” Sam whispered. And Misoori. And likely everyone in his tribe. It was a revelation.

“Yes,” said D’ean. “And you just happen to have a little more, thanks to Mai’re and the love she had for a man who was not quite fully human.” He sounded matter of fact, not at all jealous of the implication, but Sam frowned.

“Doesn’t it bother you,” he asked, “that she left you - left your father - to come to my world, and be with mine?”

D’ean shrugged again, easily, and his mouth quirked at the corner in a tiny smile. “Dragons don’t form the same attachments with one another as they do with humans,” he said. “I don’t pretend to understand it; there’s just something… Maybe it’s because we have so much time, and we’re not going anywhere, much; if we want someone, we know where we can find them, and it’s… there just isn’t the same intensity. We mate, we breed, we’re fond of one another, but the true calling - mind to mind, soul to soul, what we call the Bonding - that only happens between dragon and human. My father would never begrudge our mother finding her true mate in your world, and neither do I. It’s brought you to me, after all.” He looked down, suddenly shy.

Sam swallowed and stared at the soft sweep of lashes against D’ean’s cheek, the angular beauty of his form; of either form, he had to admit. As dragon or human, he was breathtaking. He spoke slowly, trying to find his way through new and fragile concepts to an understanding he wanted, but was conditioned not to accept.

“This… Bonding,” he tried. “It can’t… Now that we know, it doesn’t make a difference to you?”

D’ean glanced up at him, the depth of emotion piercing and vulnerable before he dropped his gaze again and bit his lip. He shrugged one shoulder awkwardly. “All I know,” he murmured so quietly that Sam had to lean closer to hear him, “is that I claimed you as my mate, and in dragon terms, that’s far more important than bloodlines. It’s not as though we were planning to raise a family together or anything. I mean… you do know I’m not female, right..?” He glanced up again to gauge Sam’s reaction to this feeble joke.

Sam gave him a quelling glance but it was only half hearted. “Yes, I think you proved that pretty conclusively last time,” he answered dryly. “Wait a moment… D’ean, did you know..? You knew about my vision, that I was looking for my mother - didn’t you have any idea who she might really be? Or did you just choose to keep it from me, so that I wouldn’t refuse…?” He couldn’t continue, the sudden suspicion clogging his throat like bile.

D’ean’s eyes opened wide and he stared back at him, stricken. “Sam, no…! You can’t think - I wasn’t trying to trick you!” he said, voice rising in distress. “I wondered, that was all; I had no proof, I didn’t know what Mai’re had been doing in your world. I only knew that she came back, hurting; she didn’t even tell me that she’d had another son. It was a long time ago. And you never told me your mother’s name; you always just thought of her as - well, ‘Mother’. I saw her image, in your mind, but I only knew her as a dragon. There were… coincidences, I’ll admit, but I swear, I didn’t know anything until she came to us tonight. Nothing solid enough to bring up and raise false hopes. I was bringing you to her, like I said, to see if she could help, and if it turned out then that they were one and the same, she could tell you herself. I didn’t think…” he lifted his arms in a helpless gesture and let them fall back to his sides. “It just didn’t matter one way or the other. My Bond is with you, Sam, that’s really all I was thinking about. I’m sorry.”

Sam gritted his teeth and looked away from the hope in D’ean’s eyes, instead staring out of the cave at the eternal sunrise of this shared dream. At least D’ean hadn’t been lying to him; he couldn’t have borne that. It still didn’t really answer the most important question, though; could they still be together, if not as lovers; mates - then as brothers, friends? Would D’ean accept that change in their relationship; and, if you got right down to the truth of it, could Sam himself? Would it be better, easier, to leave; to go back to his world where he wouldn’t have to worry about this tangle of emotions and responsibilities, and where time might, if he was lucky, smooth out the ache in his heart?

D’ean made a convulsive movement at his side and Sam glanced back to see his face was set and pinched, and the green eyes brimming.

“I’ve made my choice, Sam,” he said in a choked but determined voice. “If you can’t - if you don’t want to be with me, like that, then I understand; or at least I’ll respect your decision. I just don’t want you to go. If you’ll stay, we can make this work together, any way that you want; but if you really want to go back to your world, I’ll come with you. As your brother, or friend, or whatever; but I’m not going to let you...” He took a deep breath and put out his hand, gripping Sam’s arm. “I’ve waited a long time for you, Sam, and now that you’re here, I’m not letting go. We work well together; we’ve fought and flown and you’ve shown me new ways of thinking, that - don’t you want to find out more, to explore together…? Whether in this world, or yours?”

Sam stared into that green gaze and considered. D’ean was giving him every choice, here. But he knew, from what Mai’re had told him, that if D’ean came back with him, he would be giving up his dragon form, possibly for good. He was willing to sacrifice all that; his powers, the freedom of flight, his immortality; just to be with Sam, and he wasn’t even asking him to share any more in return than his companionship. Sam felt the bond between them, it was undeniable; it pulled at him, twisting his heart when he thought he would lose D’ean, and he didn’t feel any differently about him, now that he knew who they both were. He remembered their previous night together and felt only desire and affection, without a shred of revulsion. He loved D’ean, had wanted him from the moment they met, and if his being a dragon hadn’t changed that, then did the rest of it matter so much? It clearly didn’t to D’ean.

Sam suddenly had enough of wrestling with these demons that were not of his making, or D’ean’s. He might need more time to resolve exactly how they would go from here, but he knew that he didn’t want to give D’ean up, and he didn’t want him to sacrifice himself for Sam’s sake. He didn’t know what pact his parents had made between them, for Mai’re to come to his world, but this was his choice - D’ean had given him that - and he chose the dragon. He would stay here, and they would have all the time in the world to work things out; and in the meantime, they could have some pretty fantastic adventures together, flying; fighting the Shade; studying unicorns (maybe, if he could convince D’ean not to bite first and ask questions later…)

He looked into the dragon-man’s eyes, and smiled, feeling the weight slip from his shoulders with his decision.

“I’ll stay here with you, D’ean,” he said softly. “I choose you; I’ll always choose you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! <3
> 
> If you enjoyed this story, please consider leaving kudos, maybe even a small comment! You will make my day. Also please visit [Phoenix1966 on LJ](https://phoenix1966.livejournal.com/36755.html) to leave a note for their beautiful and talented art which inspired this whole story.


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